## Facts

- Lillian C. Tubbs rode as a guest passenger in an automobile owned and driven by Anna A. Argus in Indianapolis.
- Argus drove the car over a curb and into a tree, injuring Tubbs.
- After the collision, Argus left the scene and did not render reasonable aid or assistance to Tubbs.
- Tubbs sought damages only for additional injuries allegedly caused by Argus’s post-accident failure to assist, not for injuries from the crash impact itself.
- Argus asserted Indiana’s automobile guest statute barred any recovery absent wanton or willful misconduct.

## Issues

1. Whether Indiana’s guest statute, limiting liability for injuries “resulting from the operation” of a motor vehicle absent wanton or willful misconduct, bars a negligence claim for additional injuries caused by a driver’s post-accident failure to render aid.
2. Whether a driver whose vehicle injures a passenger has a common-law duty to render reasonable aid and assistance to the injured passenger, supporting negligence liability for aggravated harm caused by nonassistance.

## Decision

- The court reversed the judgment sustaining Argus’s demurrer and remanded.
- The guest statute did not apply because Tubbs alleged additional injuries arising after the vehicle’s operation had ceased and from nonassistance rather than from “operation” of the vehicle.
- Tubbs stated a negligence claim because Argus owed an affirmative common-law duty to render reasonable aid and assistance where the passenger’s peril resulted from an instrumentality (the automobile) under Argus’s control.

## Legal Principles

- A guest statute limiting liability for injuries “resulting from the operation” of a vehicle does not bar claims for separate, post-accident injuries not caused by vehicle operation.
- Although there is no general common-law duty to rescue, an affirmative duty to render reasonable aid and assistance arises when the plaintiff is helpless and in peril due to injury caused by an instrumentality under the defendant’s control.
- A defendant may be liable for additional or aggravated injuries proximately caused by breach of the post-injury duty to render reasonable assistance, even if liability for the initial injury is limited by statute.

## Conclusion

The court held that a guest passenger could pursue negligence damages for additional injuries allegedly caused by the driver’s post-crash failure to provide reasonable assistance, because such harm fell outside the guest statute’s “operation” limitation and because the driver owed an affirmative common-law duty to aid a passenger injured by the driver’s vehicle.


Tubbs v. Argus, 225 N.E.2d 841 (Ind. Ct. App. 1967)