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Morris v. Sorrells9/15/1992
CERTIORARI PREVIOUSLY GRANTED; COURT OF APPEALS OPINION VACATED; ORDER OF TRIAL COURT GRANTING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL REVERSED AND MATTER REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.
The opinion of the court was delivered by: WATT, Justice.
On Friday, April 3, 1987, sixteen year old Mike Carver decided to have some Tulsa Union High School classmates over to his apartment for a party, as his mother was out of town. Shortly after school was out for the day, Benji Morris, Chris Woodfin, and eight others met at Mike Carver's apartment. All of the guests were either fifteen or sixteen years old. Mike served a variety of alcoholic beverages to his young friends. Chris Woodfin got drunk and was sick at one point during the party. Benji Morris was thought to be not drunk but not sober either during the evening.
Mike Carver had invited his good friend Pat Sorrells to the party too. Pat Sorrells, however, worked at a pharmacy after school so he did not get to the Carver apartment until sometime after eight p.m. Pat drove his mother's 1980 Ford to the party. Because he did not drink, Pat Sorrells agreed to drive other party-goers on various errands. The record is undisputed that Pat Sorrells consumed no alcohol before the car crash that took the life of Benjamin Morris. Pat was a newly licensed driver, having turned sixteen the previous month, and was not familiar with Tulsa Streets. He relied on his passengers to give him directions.
At about midnight Pat drove Mike Carver's date, Rebecca Putnam, to her grandmother's house, where Rebecca was to spend the night. In the car with Pat were Mike Carver, Rebecca Putnam, Benji Morris, and Chris Woodfin. During the trip some of the passengers teased Pat about his slow and cautious driving, and urged him to drive faster.
After they left Rebecca at her grandmother's house, the four boys started back to Mike Carver's apartment. Chris Woodfin was in the front passenger seat. Seated behind him was Benji Morris. Mike Carver was seated behind Pat. As Pat Sorrells drove through a residential neighborhood in which the speed limit was twenty-five miles per hour, Mike Carver said to him that Chris Robertson, a mutual acquaintance, had once said he could drive the road they were on at seventy miles an hour. Benji Morris leaned forward, said "yeah!," and struck the top of the seat back with his hand. Pat Sorrells immediately sped up. He kept increasing his speed, although he expected one of the other boys to tell him to slow down. The other boys said nothing, so Pat continued to increase his speed. When he was going about fifty, Pat said to the other boys that he couldn't maintain that speed, but the others did not respond. Pat lost control of the car at a speed of about fifty or sixty miles per hour. He hit a dip in the road at its intersection with another, missed a curve, and crashed into trees on the right side of the road. Benji Morris and Chris Woodfin were killed.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Plaintiffs originally sought punitive damages from Pat Sorrells. At the instruction conference with the trial court following the conclusion of the evidence, however, plaintiffs abandoned the punitive damages component of their claim. The Morrises had joined Pat Sorrells's parents, Robert and Mary Sorrells, as defendants to the action on the theory that they had negligently entrusted their car to Pat. At the conclusion of plaintiff's evidence the trial court sustained Mr. and Mrs. Sorrells's demurrer to plaintiff's evidence. That ruling is not an issue in this appeal, and Robert and Mary Sorrells are not parties here.
The jury returned a verdict in which it
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