Robert Christensen never drove his ex-wife’s vehicle. He didn’t have a key to it. He didn’t even have access to the garage where she kept it. He didn’t live with her and the two rarely spoke.
But his name was on the title, which was enough to establish vicarious liability when she was involved in a fatal crash, the Florida Supreme Court recently ruled.
In Christensen v. Bowen, the court ruled a person’s intention of ownership – or non-ownership – can’t be used to assert an exception to the dangerous instrumentality doctrine within the construct of vicarious liability. Miami car accident attorneys recognize this as an important ruling for future victims of negligent drivers. It may not necessarily result in higher damage awards, but it expands the pool of potential defendants in certain cases. Here, the vehicle in question was a Chrysler PT Cruiser purchased in 2003 by the defendant and his then-wife. They had already begun dissolution of marriage proceedings at that point, but the process hadn’t concluded. Both signed the application for certificate of title, and they were listed as “owner” (him) and “co-owner” (her).
The husband never received a certificate of title because it was mailed directly to the address where his wife lived. Two years later, the divorce was finalized. Not long after, the wife was driving the vehicle drunk in Brevard County when she struck a man who was changing a tire while his wife sat in the car. Authorities would later say her blood-alcohol level was 0.235 percent and she had Xanax in her system. She was arrested, charged with DUI manslaughter, convicted and ultimately sentenced to 11.5 years in prison. However, the issue before the state supreme court was whether the husband too could be found liable. The victim’s widow filed a civil lawsuit against them both – the wife for negligence and the husband for vicarious liability for his ownership of the vehicle.
Vicarious liability holds that a third party can be held negligent even if he or she did not actually commit the act, played no role in it and neither aided nor encouraged it. The general idea is that accidents can be prevented if those in a better position to guard against them can be held liable. One form of vicarious liability is the dangerous instrumentality doctrine, which holds that a “master” who entrusts a “servant” with a dangerous instrument that is either intrinsically very dangerous or could be used in a way that poses a grave risk to others, he or she can be held liable for any injuries that result.
Most states don’t recognize motor vehicles as “dangerous instrumentalities,” but Florida is an exception. Here, the defendant’s husband argued that he should not be held vicariously liable under the beneficial ownership exception, testifying that the intention was to purchase the car as a gift for his wife, and that he had no involvement with it from that point forward. At trial, the jury was instructed that the owner of a vehicle should be defined as someone who has legal title to the car, beneficial ownership and right of control and authority to use. Based on this definition, the jury decided that the ex-husband wasn’t the owner of the vehicle. The victim’s widow appealed, and the Fifth District court reversed, finding that the ex-husband in fact did retain a property interest in the car because his name was on the title.
His intent didn’t matter. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed.
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