2011 Ct. Sup. 22444
No. NNH-CV-10-6015111Connecticut Superior Court Judicial District of New Haven at New Haven
October 27, 2011
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION IN RE MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
GOLD, J.
The defendant rental car company (the defendant) moves for summary judgment on the vicarious liability claim contained in Count Three of the plaintiff’s complaint. The motion is based upon the so-called Graves Amendment, 49 U.S.C. § 30106(a), which preempts previous state law and prohibits vicarious liability claims against rental car companies for the negligence of those to whom vehicles are rented, unless there is evidence of negligence or criminal wrongdoing on the part of the rental car company itself. See generally Rodriguez v. Testa, 296 Conn. 1, 23-24 (2010).
In this case, in an effort to satisfy this “independent negligence or criminal conduct” requirement, the plaintiff alleges that the defendant was negligent in renting a vehicle to the codefendant Kyra Evans without requiring her to disclose, or by otherwise determining, her motor vehicle convictions record, her overall driving history, and whether her license had been previously or was then suspended, and by failing to establish a policy to prevent lessees with an unsafe driving history from renting a vehicle. In its motion for summary judgment, the defendant contends that these allegations are insufficient to fulfill the requirements of the Graves Amendment exception, and that, accordingly, it is entitled to summary judgment. For the reasons below stated, the court agrees with the defendant and determines that the defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
DISCUSSION
“Practice Book § 17-49 provides that summary judgment shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, affidavits and any other proof submitted show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Sherman v. Ronco, 294 Conn. 548, 553-54 (2010). CT Page 22445 Further, “[i]n seeking summary judgment it is the movant who has the burden of showing the nonexistence of any issue of fact . . .”Zielinski v. Kotsoris, 279 Conn. 312, 318 (2006). “Once the moving party has met its burden, however, the opposing party must present evidence that demonstrates the existence of some disputed factual issue.” Socha v. Bordeau, 277 Conn. 579, 586 (2006).
Pursuant to the provisions of the Graves Amendment, the defendant here is entitled to summary judgment unless the plaintiff has alleged independent negligence or criminal wrongdoing on the part of the defendant. As noted above, the plaintiff seeks to satisfy this requirement by alleging that the defendant failed to conduct an adequate investigation into the renter’s driving history and her fitness to drive.
The issue of whether such a allegation is sufficient to exempt a claim from the limitations of the Graves Amendment has been considered by a number of Connecticut trial courts. For example, i Chapman v. Herren, Superior Court, judicial district of New London, Docket No. 07-5005067 (June 24, 2010, Cosgrove, J.) [50 Conn. L. Rptr. 228], the court held that “a rental car company is not required to investigate a potential renter’s driving record; rather, the rental car company must only assess the facial validity of a driver’s license before renting to that driver.” That court’s holding was later followed in Hollis v. Alamo Financing, LP, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. 08-5024043 (February 4, 2011, Robaina, J.) [51 Conn. L. Rptr. 434] (“it is not appropriate that this court should extend the duty of the rental car companies to require anything more than an inspection of a facially valid driver’s license.”)
The court here finds these earlier cases to be persuasive and adopts their reasoning. As noted in Chapman an Hollis, our legislature has imposed on rental car companies a specific statutory responsibility that applies at the time a vehicle is being rented. This requirement is set forth in General Statute § 14-153, and provides, in pertinent part, that the rental company “shall inspect . . . the motor vehicle operator’s license of the person initially operating such motor vehicle, [and] shall compare the signature on such license with that of the alleged licensee written in his presence.” Under this statute, therefore, the rental company, prior to leasing a vehicle, is required to assess the facial validity of the renter’s license and, by comparing the signature on the license with the signature the renter affixes CT Page 22446 to the rental agreement, confirm that the renter and licensee are, in fact, the same person. Although Connecticut law perhaps could have placed further duties upon the rental company relating to the determination of a renter’s driving fitness, the law does not, in fact, do so.
With the legislature having precisely delineated the parameters of the rental company’s responsibility in this regard, this court is compelled to reject the plaintiff’s contention that a rental company, even after complying with its § 14-153 duty to assess the facial validity of the renter’s license, has the further obligation to ascertain the fitness and prior driving record of the renter, or to determine whether the facially valid license is or has been under suspension. As was noted in Chapman and Hollis, given that specific legislation exists at both the federal and state level regulating the rental car industry, this becomes “a difficult arena for the court to impose a duty where there is silence in the statutory scheme.”
In this case, the defendant has produced evidence, in the form of an affidavit from Shannon Valenti, that establishes that a facially valid license was produced by co-defendant Evans at the time the rental agreement was executed. The plaintiff has submitted no counter-evidence that would serve to put this fact into dispute.[1] Moreover, the plaintiff has failed to provide the court with any legal authority which would require a rental car company to investigate a potential lessee’s driving record, [2] and has failed even to allege that at the time of the vehicle’s rental there existed anything in Evans’ conduct or behavior, or in the documents she provided the defendant, that would have raised “red flags” or otherwise reasonably caused the defendant to screen her qualifications with heightened scrutiny.[3] See Donnelly v. Rental Car Finance Co., Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. 10-6016545 (May 17, 2011, Wagner, J.T.R.) [51 Conn. L. Rptr. 899]; Peterson v. Swain, Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. 05-5001192 (April 6, 2010, Wilson, J.).
Under such circumstances, and consistent with both Connecticut’s unambiguous statutory requirement and the well-reasoned decisions cited herein, this court finds that there exists here no genuine issue of material fact with respect to the defendant’s compliance with its § 14-153 obligation, and, further, that the plaintiff has not sufficiently alleged that the defendant was independently negligent or in any way criminally responsible in its leasing of the CT Page 22447 vehicle in question to Evans. Therefore, the court concludes that the plaintiff’s claim against the defendant sounding in vicarious liability is preempted by federal law pursuant to the Graves Amendment.
For the foregoing reasons, the defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment is hereby granted.
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