## Facts

- Robert E. Daniels, age 19, was operating a motorcycle when it collided with an automobile driven by John K. Evans, resulting in Daniels’s death.
- Daniels’s estate, through its administrator, sued Evans for negligence.
- At trial, the jury received an instruction assessing Daniels’s conduct (for contributory negligence) under a minor-child standard: the care of an average child of like age, experience, and mental development, not the adult standard.
- The jury returned a verdict for the estate.
- Evans appealed, arguing that a minor operating a motor vehicle must be judged by the adult reasonable-care standard.

## Issues

1. Whether a minor’s contributory negligence while operating a motor vehicle should be measured by the child standard of care or the ordinary adult reasonable-person standard.
2. Whether operating a motorcycle is an “adult activity” warranting application of the adult standard of care to a minor actor.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Hampshire reversed the judgment for the plaintiff and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held the trial court erred by instructing the jury to evaluate Daniels’s conduct under the child standard.
- The court required application of the adult reasonable-care standard because operating a motorcycle is an adult activity posing grave danger if performed without adult levels of care.

## Legal Principles

- Children engaged in activities appropriate to their age are judged by the care reasonably expected from a child of similar age, experience, and mental development under the circumstances.
- When a minor undertakes an activity normally performed by adults and capable of causing grave danger if performed carelessly, the minor must exercise the same degree of care as a reasonable and prudent adult.
- Operation of a motor vehicle, including a motorcycle, is an adult activity for which the public is entitled to expect a uniform adult standard of care, regardless of the operator’s minority.

## Conclusion

The court recognized an adult-activity exception to the child standard of care, holding that a minor who operates a motor vehicle must be judged by the ordinary adult reasonable-care standard; the plaintiff’s verdict was reversed because the jury was instructed under the wrong standard.


Daniels v. Evans, 107 N.H. 407, 224 A.2d 63 (N.H. 1966)