ICC-certificated carrier liable; driver was not owner-lessor himself, but someone from whom the owner-lessor secured driving services
How later courts described this case
- ICC-certificated carrier liable; driver was not owner-lessor himself, but someone from whom the owner-lessor secured driving services
- joint-venture claim against a truck driver and a freight broker succeeded because evidence showed that the freight broker “had control over, or the right to control, [the truck driver] as he headed west with the truck” (alteration added)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
DONNELLY, Judge,
dissenting.
Today, the Court ignores settled Missouri law and implants, again without a rationale, a scheme for redistribution of property. See Virginia D. v. Madesco Investment Corp., 648 S.W.2d 881 (Mo. banc 1983).
The principal opinion holds P.I.E. vicariously liable on the basis of a regulation adopted by the Interstate Commerce Commission and governing leases of rolling stock by a certified carrier. In so doing, it imposes a liability on P.I.E. when using leased equipment greater than its liability when operating its own equipment. I cannot agree.
The essential questions in this case are (1) whether P.I.E. is vicariously liable under the Missouri doctrine of joint enterprise; and (2) whether Mario is vicariously liable under the Missouri doctrine of joint enterprise.
In Herrell v. St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co., 324 Mo. 38, 45 , 23 S.W.2d 102, 105 (banc 1929), this Court declared “ ‘that negligence in the conduct of another will not be imputed to a party if he neither authorized such conduct, nor participated therein, nor had the right or power to control it.’ ” See *247 Restatement (Second) of Torts § 491, Comments b & c (1965).
In my view, respondents failed to make a submissible case.
I respectfully dissent.