Law Commons^™

Roberts V. Johnson—A Welcome Change Tainted By An Outmoded Approach To Statutory Interpretation, Mark F. Miller

Seattle University Law Review

In 1974, the Washington State Legislature repealed its automobile guest statute, intending to establish ordinary negligence as the proper standard of liability in host-guest automobile tort actions. Nevertheless, in March 1978, in Lau v. Nelson, the Washington Supreme Court, ignoring clear indicia of legislative intent, held that the repeal of the guest statute revived the common law of this state, which, like the guest statute, predicated a guest's recovery on proving the host grossly negligent. Having effectively reinstated the very law the legislature repealed, the Lau court declined to decide whether the majority rule of ordinary negligence should replace …