Moore v. Roddie

Decided April 28, 1919

Washington Supreme Court · decided 1919-04-28

, entered November 23, 1917, upon an order granting a motion for judgment notwithstanding verdict, in an action for personal injuries.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The court, however, desires to modify the broad and unqualified statement in the original opinion that ‘an automobile is a dangerous instrumentality.’ A part of the opinion was unintentionally omitted; the writer intended to say: “ ‘An automobile is a dangerous instrumentality when driven upon the highways in a careless and negligent manner; at least, more so than a horse-drawn vehicle’; followed by the statement as to an owner intrusting it to or leaving it with another, and the quotation from Knust v. Bullock, 59 Wash. 141 , 109 Pac. 329 , as to a horse-drawn vehicle. “We are not now disposed to adopt the daring innovation, as a legal principle, that an automobile is, per se, a ‘dangerous instrumentality.’ ””

quoted by 1 later decision, including 24 Wash. 2d 543 - Wellons v. Wiley

Relies on Knust v. Bullock · Moore v. Roddie

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed · Decided 1919-04-28

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently March 1960

2 federal appellate · 6 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1On Rehearing.

Per Curiam.

¶2A petition for rehearing En Banc having been granted herein and the case reheard, a majority, of the court adhere to the original decision reported in 103 Wash. 386, 174 Pac. 648, reversing the judgment.

¶3The court, however, desires to modify the broad and unqualified statement in the original opinion that “an automobile is a dangerous instrumentality.” A part of the opinion was unintentionally omitted; the writer intended to say:

“An automobile is a dangerous instrumentality when driven upon the highways in a careless and negligent manner; at least, more so than a horse-drawn vehicle”; followed by the statement as to an owner intrusting it to or leaving it with another, and the quotation from Knust v. Bullock, 59 Wash. 141, 109 Pac. 329, as to a horse-drawn vehicle.

¶4We are not now disposed to adopt the daring innovation, as a legal principle, that an automobile is, per se, a “dangerous instrumentality.”