## Facts

- A car-rental company rented an automobile to Kamman under a standard rental agreement.
- Kamman, in possession and control of the vehicle, collided with a car driven by Ralph Shepard, damaging the rental company’s vehicle.
- The rental company sued Shepard to recover repair costs for the vehicle; after Shepard’s death, his estate administrator, Doris Campbell, was substituted as defendant.
- A jury found both Kamman and Shepard negligent and that their combined negligence caused the accident.
- Campbell argued Kamman’s negligence should be imputed to the rental company, barring the rental company’s recovery for property damage.

## Issues

1. Whether a renter-driver’s contributory negligence may be imputed to a non-driving owner/lessor to bar the lessor’s recovery against a negligent third party for vehicle damage.
2. Whether a conventional lessor–lessee relationship supplies the control or right of control necessary for imputed contributory negligence.

## Decision

- The court affirmed judgment for the rental company.
- The renter-driver’s negligence was not imputed to the rental company.
- Imputation was rejected because the rental company lacked a relationship with the driver that included control or a right of control over the driver’s operation of the vehicle.

## Legal Principles

- Contributory negligence is imputed to a plaintiff only when the plaintiff has control or a right of control over the negligent actor.
- Relationships supporting imputation include agency, master–servant, or joint enterprise; a standard lessor–lessee rental relationship does not, by itself, establish such control.
- Mere ownership of a vehicle and permission to use it do not make a non-driving owner contributorily negligent through the driver’s negligence for purposes of the owner’s affirmative property-damage claim against a third party.

## Conclusion

A non-driving car lessor may recover vehicle-damage losses from a negligent third party even when the renter-driver was also negligent, because the renter’s negligence is not imputed to the lessor absent a control-based relationship such as agency, employment, or joint enterprise.


Continental Auto Lease Corp. v. Campbell, 227 N.E.2d 28 (N.Y. 1967)