In Armenta v. Churchill (1954) 42 Cal.2d 448, a road-paving worker was killed when a dump truck backed over him. The defendants were the truck driver and his wife, who was the driver's employer and registered owner of the truck. The complaint charged husband with negligence while acting in the course and scope of his employment. The complaint also alleged negligence against wife for entrusting the truck to her husband who she knew was a careless, negligent and reckless driver. Defendants admitted in their answer that husband was wife's employee and was acting within the scope of employment at the time of the accident. They denied the allegations of the wife's independent negligence. At trial, plaintiff offered evidence that husband had been found guilty of 37 traffic violations, including a conviction for manslaughter, and that wife knew these facts. Defendants objected on the ground that this evidence was directed to an issue which had been removed from the case by their admission in the pleadings that husband was acting in the course and scope of his employment. The California Supreme Court held the trial court properly excluded the evidence. The court reasoned: "It is true that defendant wife's admission of vicarious liability as the principal for the tort liability, if any, of her husband was not directly responsive to plaintiffs' added allegations of fact ... relating to her personal negligence. But the only proper purpose of the allegations ... with respect to wife was to impose upon her the same legal liability as might be imposed upon her husband in the event the latter was found to be liable. Plaintiffs could not have recovered against wife upon either count in the absence of a finding of liability upon the part of her husband; and wife had admitted her liability in the event that her husband was found to be liable. Plaintiffs' allegations in the two counts with respect to wife merely represented alternative theories under which plaintiffs sought to impose upon her the same liability as might be imposed upon her husband. Upon this legal issue concerning the liability of wife for the tort, if any, of her husband, the admission of wife was unqualified, as she admitted that her husband was her agent and employee and that he was acting in the course of his employment at the time of the accident. Since the legal issue of her liability for the alleged tort was thereby removed from the case, there was no material issue remaining to which the offered evidence could be legitimately directed." (Armenta v. Churchill, supra, 42 Cal.2d at pp. 457-458.)