Dean v. Bolduc

LUMMUS, Justice. This is an action for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff while riding as a guest in the defendants automobile in the early morning of May 2, 1930. The evidence tended to show the following facts. The parties went together at about eleven oclock in the evening to a cottage at a lake, where there were four other men and four women. The company was eating, drinking beer, talking, singing and dancing. It could have been found that both the plaintiff and the defendant were sober, although the defendant testified that both had a light jag on. About one oclock in the morning the parties left the cottage in the defendants automobile which was driven by the defendant. That automobile followed another driven by one Smith, and at one point on the road the defendant drove so as to push the Smith automobile. The plaintiff remonstrated, and the defendant said he would not do it again; but farther on he did the same thing, and still farther on at a curve or corner he bumped into the Smith automobile. Some of the passengers in the Smith car got out, as did the plaintiff and the defendant, and pulled the automobiles apart. All expostulated with the defendant, and he promised that he would drive properly thereafter. The night was foggy, and the roads were wet. The plaintiff and the defendant started again, and the defendant drove carefully for a time, but soon began to drive fast, at about seventy miles an hour, notwithstanding the entreaties of the plaintiff to drive more slowly. At a corner, the automobile left the road, hit a tree, and the plaintiff was hurt. The defendant estimated his speed at thirty-five or forty miles an hour as he approached the curve, instead of seventy miles an hour.