Taylor v. Joyce

CRAIL, J.

The defendants (appellants) appeal from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff recovered in an action for damages for personal injuries. The plaintiff is a motion picture actress. The defendant Joyce is engaged in the business of representing actors and writers in the motion picture business, and the defendant Scott was a chauffeur employed by the defendant Joyce for the purpose of driving Joyce’s automobile. Miss Taylor was a guest of defendant Joyce on Christmas Eve at a cabaret party held at the Ambassador

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hotel in Los Angeles which lasted until approximately 2 o’clock on the following morning, at which time the parties got into the automobile of defendant Joyce and were driven by the defendant Scott to a point a half mile from the hotel grounds, where he collided with a parked car. After hitting the parked ear Joyce’s automobile went on and scraped a palm tree with its left side and came to a stop against the lawn in front of a house on Normandie Avenue. As the plaintiff was the guest of the defendant Joyce, she was not entitled to recover damages against Mm for mere negligence, but she claimed and the evidence indicated that his chauffeur was decidedly drunk. Her entire basis of recovery against Joyce was founded on that portion of section 141% of the California Vehicle Act, which reads as follows: “Nothing in this section contained shall be construed as relieving the owner or driver or person responsible for the operation of a vehicle from liability for injury to or death of such guest proximately resulting from the intoxication or wilful misconduct of such owner, driver or person responsible for the operation of such

vehicle;

provided, that in any action for death or for injury or damage to person or property by or on behalf of a guest . . . the burden shall be upon plaintiff to establish that such intoxication or wilful misconduct was the proximate cause of such death or injury or damage.”

The appellants complain bitterly and at length with regard to certain instructions of the trial court to the jury in which the court used the terms “under the influence of intoxicating liquor” and “intoxication” as synonymous terms, their contention apparently being that if a person be intoxicated he is dead drunk, at least decidedly drunk, whereas if a person be under the influence of intoxicating liquor he may be only mildly intoxicated. They do not seem to realize that a person may be “intoxicated” in varying degrees, just as he may be “under the influence of intoxicating liquor” in varying degrees. The appellants are foreclosed in this regard by the recent case of