Bunnell v. Parelius

Before Judson v. Bee Hive Auto Service Co., 136 Or. 1,294 P. 588, 297 P. 1050, 74 A.L.R. 944, this court, in a number of cases, had considered the effect to be given to evidence that the defendant was the owner of an automobile driven by another, whose negligent driving caused injury to the plaintiff. Uniformly, it was held that such evidence sufficed to make a prima facie case of responsibility of the owner of the vehicle for the acts of the driver. Sometimes the court arrived at this result by saying that the fact of ownership creates a presumption of law that the driver was the agent of…