Can a motor vehicle owner recover damages from a permissive operator?

Cases involving the statutory liability of a motor vehicle owner for the negligence of a permissive operator must be considered as being in a class by themselves because of the owner's statutory right to be indemnified by the driver. Because of that right, separate verdicts against owner and operator in general are not to be interpreted as providing for recovery of the total of the amounts mentioned in the separate verdicts. The allowance of such a total recovery would impose upon the operator a greater liability than the verdict against him had fixed. (Aynes v. Winans, 33 Cal.2d 206, 208--209, 200 P.2d 533.)