A Caution to BC Vehicle Owners – Take Care in Who You Lend Your Vehicle To
Reasons for judgement were published this week by the BC Court of Appeal revealing a valuable lesson to registered owners of vehicles. Owners must take care in choosing who they lend their vehicle to as they can be found personally liable if such a person carelessly injures others while driving or operating the vehicle.
In today’s case (Robert v. Forster) Mr. Forster (the owner of a vehicle) allowed his daughter to use it. He had rules restricting the scope of this permission, and these were that she “was not to drink and drive” and that “no one other than (the daughter) was to drive the vehicle“.
On June 2004 Mr. Forster’s daughter took the Jeep out. She has been drinking at a bar. After leaving the bar the daughter followed the first rule and did not drink and drive, however she broke her father’s second rule and let a friend drive the vehicle. As the friend was driving the daughter “wrenched the steering wheel to the right” and caused the vehicle to flip into a ditch resulting in injuries to the occupants.
Various lawsuits were brought. At trial the daughter, despite being a passenger, was found to be “driving” the vehicle. She was found to be careless in grabbing the steering wheel with a finding that “t]he only conclusion I can come to on the evidence adduced at trial is that (the daughter’s) intoxication led her to believe that a hazard existed where there was none, or to think that it would be humorous to give the Jeep a shake by grabbing the steering wheel” The Court went on to find that not only was she liable for the occupants injuries but so was the father as a result of s. 86 of the BC Motor Vehicle Act which holds as follows:
In an action to recover loss or damage sustained by a person by reason of a motor vehicle on a highway, every person driving or operating the motor vehicle who is living with and as a member of the family of the owner of the motor vehicle, and every person driving or operating the motor vehicle who acquired possession of it with the consent, express or implied, of the owner of the motor vehicle, is deemed to be the agent or servant of that owner and employed as such, and is deemed to be driving and operating the motor vehicle in the course of his or her employment.
The father appealed arguing he should not be held liable because the daughter was a passenger at the time and therefore could not have been “driving” the vehicle.
The BC Court of Appeal disagreed and dismissed the appeal. In doing so the BC Court of Appeal made it clear that s. 86 of the BC Motor Vehicle Act is to be given a broad interpretation because it is intended to “expand the availability of compensation to injured plaintiffs).” Specifically the BC High Court held as follows:
[21] This Court considered the purposes of s. 86 in Yeung (Guardian ad litem of) v. Au, 2006 BCCA 217, 269 D.L.R. (4th) 727, affirmed 2007 SCC 45. After reviewing the history and context of the section, Madam Justice Newbury commented as follows:
[38] … the purposes of s. 86 are, I would suggest … to expand the availability of compensation to injured plaintiffs beyond drivers who may be under-insured or judgment-proof, and to encourage employers and other owners to take care in entrusting their vehicles to others.
The Court concluded in that case that a proper interpretation of s. 86 created vicarious liability on lessors of motor vehicles whose drivers are negligent in their operation if the drivers are in possession of the vehicle with the consent of the lessors.
[22] In my opinion, the conclusion that Ms. Forster was driving the Jeep is in accord with the grammatical and ordinary meaning of the language of s. 86 and the object and intention of the Legislature in enacting it. The decision in R. v. Bélanger establishes that a person sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle can be regarded to be driving the vehicle if he or she controls the direction of the vehicle by turning its steering wheel. It is consistent with the first purpose of s. 86 articulated in Yeung v. Au to conclude that the Legislature intended an owner of a vehicle to be vicariously liable if a person, in possession of the vehicle with the consent of the owner, commits a deliberate, but negligent, act affecting the direction of the vehicle that causes injuries to another person.
[23] I therefore agree with the conclusion of the trial judge that Ms. Forster was driving the Jeep for the purpose of s. 86.
- Implied Consent
Another interesting point of this judgement was the Court’s discussion of whether the Father consented to the daughter’s friend driving the vehicle. You will recall that one of the clear rules was that only the daughter was allowed to drive, not her friends. At trial Mr. Justice Rogers held that the father nonetheless consented to the friend operating the vehicle and provided the following reasons:
[32] Barreiro makes it clear that the policy that drove the result in Morrison extends to situations where the owner gives the keys to its agent and the agent passes the keys on to a third party. Barreiro stands for the proposition that so long as the transfer of car keys from owner to second party is done by an exercise of free will, and the second party gives the keys to a third party by free will, the owner will be deemed to have consented to the third party’s possession of the car. That will be the result even though the owner and the second party had an understanding that the third party was not to ever get possession of those keys.
[33] In my view, except for the fact that (the owner) obtained no financial benefit from (the driver’s) possession of the Jeep, the present case is not distinguishable from Barreiro. (the owner) freely gave the Jeep’s keys to (his daughter). She freely gave the keys to (the driver). (the owner) must, therefore, be taken to have expressly consented to (the driver’s) possession of the Jeep on the night in issue.
[34] For the same reason, (the owner) must be taken to have expressly consented to (his daughter’s) possession of the Jeep that night, and that is so notwithstanding the fact that she was intoxicated and that her being intoxicated broke the other of (the owner’s rules.
The BC Court of Appeal was asked to overturn this ruling but they refused to do so. The BC High Court held that, since the driver of the vehicle was not careless (and therefore not responsible for any of the passengers injuries) the issue of whether or not there was consent “is moot and need not be decided on this appeal“
You can click here to read my 2008 article discussing the trial judgement.