## Facts

- A Soda Springs High School football team traveled to an away game using privately owned automobiles.
- Charlotte Doty, a teacher and owner of one vehicle, offered her car for the trip after learning the coach needed an additional car.
- Doty permitted use of her car on the condition that the coach, Russell Garst, personally drive it.
- The school district supplied gasoline; Doty received no compensation.
- On the return trip, Garst lost control on a dry highway curve and the car left the road and went down a steep slope, injuring student Richard Gorton.
- Richard Gorton (by his guardian) sued for personal injuries, and his father sued for medical and related expenses; the cases were consolidated.
- The jury found for both plaintiffs; Doty appealed, disputing agency and arguing the matter was a simple loan of the car.

## Issues

1. Whether sufficient evidence supported a finding that Garst was Doty’s agent while driving her car, making Doty vicariously liable for his negligence.
2. Whether automobile ownership and the circumstances of permission to drive can support an inference or presumption of agency.
3. Whether negligence and contributory negligence issues were properly submitted to the jury.

## Decision

- The Idaho Supreme Court affirmed the judgments for the plaintiffs.
- The court held there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find an agency relationship between Doty and Garst during the trip.
- The court upheld submission to the jury of (a) agency, (b) Garst’s negligence, and (c) any contributory negligence by the minor passenger.

## Legal Principles

- Agency arises from mutual consent that one person act on another’s behalf and subject to the other’s control; compensation or a commercial purpose is not required.
- “Master and servant” is treated as a subset of “principal and agent” for vicarious liability analysis.
- In automobile cases, ownership may create a prima facie showing supporting an inference that the driver acted as the owner’s agent, subject to rebuttal.
- Conditional permission to use a vehicle—particularly a requirement that a specific person drive—may support a finding of the owner’s right of control sufficient for implied agency.
- When evidence permits competing inferences on agency or negligence, the questions are for the jury.

## Conclusion

The court held that Doty’s ownership of the car, combined with her condition that Garst personally drive it, allowed the jury to find an implied agency relationship, supporting vicarious liability for Garst’s negligent driving and justifying affirmance of the plaintiffs’ verdicts.


Gorton v. Doty, 57 Idaho 792, 69 P.2d 136 (Idaho 1937)