Farber v. Smolack
New York Court of Appeals
20 N.Y.2d 198, 229 N.E.2d 36, 282 N.Y.S.2d 248 (1967)
Facts
In April 1960, Robert Smolak (defendant) loaned his station wagon to his brother, Arthur Smolak (defendant), for a family trip from New York to Florida. All of the Smolaks were residents of New York. While driving back from Florida with his wife and children, Arthur encountered problems with the car pulling to the right. He stopped to have the car serviced in North Carolina. Afterward, Arthur continued to have issues controlling the car, which progressively worsened. He failed to stop even after losing control of the car. He later lost control again while still in North Carolina, and the car overturned, killing his wife and injuring his two children. Morris Farber (plaintiff), as administrator for one of the children, Kenneth Smolak, filed an action in New York against Robert as the owner and Arthur as the negligent driver of the car. Under New York law, the driver’s negligence was imputed to the owner. North Carolina law presumed that the driver’s negligence was imputed to the owner, but this presumption could be overcome by evidence to the contrary, such as by showing that the owner received no benefit from the trip. Applying North Carolina law, the trial court dismissed the action, and the appellate court affirmed. Farber appealed to the New York Court of Appeals. [Editor’s Note: The Court of Appeals is New York’s highest court.]
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Bergan, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 710,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 44,600 briefs, keyed to 983 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.