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Benson v. Webster4/28/1999
Rental impliedly consented to Wilcox's or Webster's operation of the vehicle. Cf. Van Zwol, 440 N.W.2d at 592-93 (owner did not impliedly consent to third-party's operation of vehicle where owner never permitted or expressly consented to third-party-driver's operation of vehicle in the past and also had no contact with the third-party driver on the day of the accident). Finnin Rental thus cannot be liable to plaintiffs under section 321.493. Cf. Marquez v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car, 53 Cal. App. 4th 319, 323, 61 Cal. Rptr. 2d 557, 559 (Cal. Ct. App. 1997) (noting that where renter, when asked, did not request that other drivers be allowed to drive car, rental agency had no reason to expect that operator or anyone other than renter would drive the vehicle; rental company thus did not give implied permission to person other than renter to drive car and thus could not be held liable for driver's negligence); Bieszck v. Avis Rent-A-Car Sys., Inc., 583 N.W.2d 691, 695-96 (Mich. 1998) (car rental company not liable for harm caused by twenty-one year old driver who was driving car without rental company's permission; rental agreement stated that car was not to be driven by anyone under the age of twenty-five and thus rental company did not consent to twenty-one year old driver's operation of the car).
We thus conclude that the district court properly determined that defendant Webster was not operating the vehicle with the implied consent of defendant Finnin Rental. As a result, Finnin Rental has no liability to plaintiffs under section 321.493. We affirm the judgment of the district court on this issue.
VI. Disposition.
We conclude that the district court judgment should be affirmed concerning the damages award against defendant Webster.
The district court judgment in favor of defendant Finnin Rental is also affirmed because Finnin Rental has no liability to plaintiffs under Iowa Code section 321.493.
We reverse the judgment of the district court against defendant Smothers. Costs should be taxed against plaintiffs.
AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED IN PART.
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