Dallas attorneys handling auto insurance cases would want to know of this 1960 case. It is from the Texarkana Court of Appeals and is styled Hanson v. Green. Here is some of the relevant information.
This is an automobile collision suit wherein Jerry R. Hanson and wife were plaintiffs and Roy Green was defendant. The trial court instructed a verdict in favor of defendant Green and the Hansons have appealed.
The material undisputed facts are briefly in effect as follows: Appellee Roy Green was the owner of a 1955 Chevrolet automobile which was in good mechanical condition. On May 19, 1957, his daughter, Nancy, requested and received permission from her father to drive the automobile over to a friend’s house, the Brownings, for a social visit, and the father cautioned her to be careful. No one accompanied her. Nancy then lacked about two months being 15 years of age, she had no driverhs license, and had been driving ‘close to a year’ prior thereto. At no time prior to May 19, 1957, did appellee have any knowledge that Nancy would permit anyone else to drive the automobile, and if appellee had known on the occasion of May 19, 1957, that Nancy would have permitted any other person to drive the car he would not have let her the car. Nancy permitted one of her friends, Gerald Lee Hunt, a minor, who had no driver’s license, to drive the automobile, and Hunt was driving the automobile at the time of its collision with the vehicle operated by appellant Jerry R. Hanson. Mrs. Hanson was riding in the Hanson car and alleged receipt of personal injuries in the collision for which suit was brought, as well as for property damages to the Hanson automobile.
Appellants have made no claim that appellee’s automobile at any time material hereto was mechanically defective or unsafe, and there is no evidence in the record to that effect.
There is no evidence in the record that appellee at any time prior to the accident had any knowledge or notice that anyone other than his daughter nancy would drive his automobile on the occasion in question.
Appellee at no time consented for Gerald Lee Hunt to operate his automobile, and did not in any manner ratify or adopt Nancy’s action in permitting Gerald Lee Hunt to drive his car.
It is also undisputed that on the occasion in question Nancy was not on a mission for her father, and her use of the automobile on said occasion was solely for her own purposes and pleasure.
In order to impose liability against the owner of an automobile, assuming actionable negligence on the part of the driver, it must be shown that the driver was using the same either at the owner’s direction or in the furtherance of the owner’s interest or business. Exceptions to this rule are made when (a) the owner knowingly entrusts the vehicle to an incompetent, reckless or unlicensed driver, and such driver’s negligence is a proximate cause of the injury complained of and (b) when the owner knowingly entrusts a defective vehicle to a driver or suffers the same to be operated upon the highway, and such negligence is a proximate cause of the injury complained of.
Foreseeability and causation are two necessary elements of proximate cause.
The negligence of appellee, if any in entrusting his car to his daughter Nancy an unlicensed driver, under the undisputed facts in this cause, was not a proximate cause of appellants’ injuries and damages.
The trial court correctly instructed a verdict in favor of appellee Green.
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