## Facts

- Ruth Ballew, age 72, rode as a rear-seat passenger in an eastbound Buick driven by L.V. Orr on Route A in Stone County, Missouri.
- Michael Aiello drove a westbound Chevrolet with Gerald M. Gilmore seated in the right front passenger seat; their wives rode in the back.
- Route A was a two-lane blacktop roadway about 21–22 feet wide with narrow shoulders.
- Gilmore fell asleep while riding in Aiello’s car.
- As Aiello’s vehicle rounded a curve, its right wheels left the pavement onto the shoulder.
- Gilmore’s wife screamed, waking Gilmore abruptly.
- Upon awakening and perceiving an obstruction on the shoulder, Gilmore grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it left.
- Aiello’s car crossed into the oncoming lane and collided with Orr’s car, injuring Ballew.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence made a submissible case that passenger Gilmore was negligent for grabbing and turning the steering wheel.
2. Whether an act performed while the actor is being roused from sleep, with mind and will not yet operating consciously, can satisfy negligence’s requirement of a voluntary act.

## Decision

- The Missouri Court of Appeals reversed the judgment against Gilmore.
- The court held Ballew failed to present a submissible negligence case against Gilmore because his steering-wheel grab was not a voluntary, conscious act.
- The trial court erred in denying Gilmore’s motion for directed verdict at the close of all the evidence.

## Legal Principles

- Negligence liability requires conduct that includes a voluntary, conscious act (or a voluntary omission).
- Reflexive or automatic bodily movements occurring while a person is still effectively asleep or only partially awake lack the volitional element required for negligence.
- A passenger may be liable for intentionally interfering with a driver’s control, but liability does not attach where the interference is involuntary and there is no separate basis for fault (such as prior culpable conduct creating the risk).

## Conclusion

Because the evidence showed Gilmore acted instinctively while emerging from sleep and not through a conscious, voluntary choice, he could not be held liable in negligence for grabbing the steering wheel, and the judgment against him was reversed.


Ballew v. Aiello, 422 S.W.2d 396 (Mo. Ct. App. 1967)