Mueseler v. Bridgewater

PLUMMER, J. The plaintiff had judgment against the defendants in the sum of $2,500 and costs for and on account of the alleged wrongful conversion of a certain Packard automobile. From this judgment the defendants appeal, and bring this cause before us upon the judgment-roll alone.

The findings of the court are to the effect that on or about the nineteenth day of May, 1930, the plaintiff purchased from Carl R. Henderson a Packard sedan automobile, paying therefor the sum of $2,287.50; that the plaintiff being incapacitated, by reason of physical infirmities, from driving an automobile, and also from transacting business, requested his son to look about for a good used car for the uses and purposes of the plaintiff and his wife, to be driven, however, by the son. In accordance with such request, the plaintiff’s son, after looking about, found the car in question, took the plaintiff out two or three times in the car, whereupon the plaintiff decided to buy the automobile. The plaintiff was then driven by his son to the automobile agency, where the plaintiff made out a check for the purchase price of the automobile, gave it to his son who went into the salesroom and arranged with a salesman for some slight repairs, delivered the check to the salesman, and signed his own name to an order slip for the purchase of the automobile, the son believing at the time that he was signing only an order for the delivery of the car.

Following the usual custom, the order slip was placed in a desk basket, from which Henderson took the slip and caused the car to be registered with the motor vehicle department of the state of California, in the name of the son, [219]H. A. Mueseler. The matter of registration of the car was never mentioned between father and son, or the agent or salesman, and the plaintiff did not know that said automobile was registered in his son’s name at any time until after the automobile was attached at the instance of the defendant, H. S. Bridgewater.

Upon the completion of the purchase the car was delivered to the residence of the plaintiff in this action, and remained there for several days, after which it was kept in the garage owned by the son. It appears that the son lived six or eight blocks from the residence of the plaintiff, where the plaintiff had theretofore kept other cars owned by him, and whenever the plaintiff desired to be driven about, the son would take an automobile from the garage, drive to the residence of the plaintiff, pick up the plaintiff and drive for him, whether for pleasure or business, and after the completion of the drive, leave the plaintiff at the plaintiff’s residence, and to save himself from walking the six or eight blocks, drive the car back to the garage situate on the premises occupied by the son.