A guest statute is a term used in the law of

torts A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishab ...

to describe a

statute A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by ...

that makes it significantly more difficult for a

passenger A passenger (also abbreviated as pax) is a person who travels in a vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. Th ...

in an

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded ...

to recover damages from the driver for injuries received in an accident resulting from ordinary negligence on the part of the driver. Instead, passengers are limited to suits based on

gross negligence Gross negligence is the "lack of slight diligence or care" or "a conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party." In some jurisdictions a person injured as a result of gross negl ...

, recklessness, or intentional misconduct. The statute may also place a cap on the damages to be awarded, or limit damages to compensation for actual physical injuries. The original purpose of the guest statute was both to protect drivers from frivolous litigation and to protect insurance companies from collusive and fraudulent suits (wherein the passenger sues the driver in order to collect from the driver's insurer). For the same reason, some states also passed aviation guest statutes, which limit the liability of non-commercial airplane passengers. In 1917, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that "unpaid drivers, analogized to gratuitous bailees, should not be held liable to their guests for automobile accidents in the absence of gross negligence." After this, almost 30 states adopted this heightened requirement by statute. Nebraska's guest statute was repealed in 2010 following a court case upholding its constitutionality. Oregon maintains a guest statute applicable to non-paying passengers in aircraft or watercraft limiting claims for injury, death or loss in case of an accident, unless the accident was intentional on the part of the owner or operator or caused by the gross negligence or intoxication of the owner or operator.

Guest Statutes and Interspousal Tort Suits

Guest statutes played a large role in the legal trends surrounding interspousal tort suits for accidents arising from negligent automobile accidents. Judicial decisions regarding spouses' ability to sue one another for tortious acts contained similar policy concerns to those underlying the adoption of guest statutes. Scholars point to the rise of guest statutes and their treatment by courts in the interspousal liability context as evidence that denying spouses the ability to sue each other was not the result of patriarchal restriction, but was truly motivated by worries surrounding insurance fraud.

References

Tort law {{Law-stub