Bethel v. New York City Transit Authority

• Decision Date: 15 October 1998
• Citation: 92 N.Y.2d 348,681 N.Y.S.2d 201,703 N.E.2d 1214
• Parties: , 703 N.E.2d 1214, 1998 N.Y. Slip Op. 8697 Mark BETHEL, Respondent, v. NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Doing Business as Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 201

681 N.Y.S.2d 201

92 N.Y.2d 348, 703 N.E.2d 1214, 1998

N.Y. Slip Op. 8697

Mark BETHEL, Respondent, v. NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Doing Business as Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 15, 1998.

Lawrence Heisler, Wallace D. Gossett, Lawrence A. Silver and Dawn Reid-Green, Brooklyn, for appellant.

Carol R. Finocchio and Michael A. Cervini, New York City, for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

LEVINE, Judge.

Over a century ago this Court adopted its version of the rule which came to prevail at the time in almost all State jurisdictions, imposing the duty upon common carriers of "the exercise of the utmost care, so far as human skill and foresight can go," for the safety of their passengers in transit (Kelley v. Manhattan Ry. Co., 112 N.Y. 443, 450, 20 N.E. 383 [emphasis supplied] ). New York, however, limited application of the rule of the carrier's duty of extraordinary care to possible defects "in the road-bed, or machinery or in the construction of the cars, or * * * appliances such as would be likely to occasion great danger and loss of life" (id., at 450, 20 N.E. 383). The duty of highest care was not extended to risks of injuries resulting from the conduct of operational employees of carriers (see, Stierle v. Union Ry. Co., 156 N.Y 70, 73, 50 N.E. 419, rearg. denied 156 N.Y. 684, 50 N.E. 834), or to the carriers' stations, platforms or other facilities of ingress or egress (see, Lewis v. Metropolitan Transp. Auth., 99 A.D.2d 246, 248, 472 N.Y.S.2d 368, affd. 64 N.Y.2d 670, 485 N.Y.S.2d 252, 474 N.E.2d 612). For those situations, the customary standard of reasonable care applied.

Nearly 50 years ago, this Court suggested that the rule of a common carrier's duty of extraordinary care should be reexamined (see, McLean v. Triboro Coach Corp., 302 N.Y. 49, 51, 96 N.E.2d 83). Since McLean, two Second Circuit panels have anticipated our eventual abandonment of the rule, in favor of the more universal standard of reasonable care under all of the circumstances of the particular case (see, Stagl v. Delta Airlines, 52 F.3d 463, 471, n. 5; Plagianos v. American Airlines, 912 F.2d 57, 59). And two terms ago, in overruling another latter 19th century special doctrine of common carrier liability for injuries to passengers (for the torts of employees, irrespective of whether they were acting within the scope of their employment), we again questioned whether exacting a carrier's duty of exceptional care was still appropriate (see, Adams v. New York City Tr. Auth., 88 N.Y.2d 116, 121, 643 N.Y.S.2d 511, 666 N.E.2d 216).

We granted leave to appeal in this case to confront directly whether a duty of highest care should continue to be applied, as a matter of law, to common carriers and conclude that it should not. We thus realign the standard of care required of common carriers with the traditional, basic negligence standard of reasonable care under the circumstances. Under that standard, there is no stratification of degrees of care as a matter of law (see, Prosser and Keeton, Torts § 34, at 210 [5th ed.] ). Rather, "there are only different amounts of care, as a matter of fact" (id., at 211).

In this case, plaintiff boarded New York City Transit Authority M5 Bus No. 2209, in midtown Manhattan on June 19, 1989, and proceeded to a seat directly opposite the rear door of the bus referred to at the trial as the "wheelchair accessible seat." The seat was wheelchair accessible only in the sense that if a wheelchair-bound passenger entered the bus at the rear door by means of the disabled person's platform lift, the seat could be folded up and against the sidewall of the bus by means of a lever under it, thereby creating a space for the wheelchair and passenger to be strapped in against the wall. At any other time, the seat would be in its normal horizontal position, available for ordinary seating by ambulatory passengers. According to plaintiff, this seat collapsed immediately upon his sitting down and he fell to the floor of the bus, severely injuring his back. After the accident, a Transit Authority inspection revealed that the position of the seat was at a slightly elevated angle and that the seat could not be restored to its normal, completely horizontal position. In the inspector's attempt to adjust the seat, a hinge broke and the seat collapsed.

Plaintiff was unable to produce any evidence that the Transit Authority actually knew that the seat was subject to collapse. Instead, plaintiff relied upon a theory of constructive notice, evidenced by a computer printout repair record of Bus No. 2209, containing two notations that, 11 days before the accident, repairs (adjustment and alignment) were made to a "Lift Wheelchair." Plaintiff contended that the repairs to the "Lift Wheelchair" were to the seat in question, and that a proper inspection during those repairs would have revealed the defect causing the seat to collapse 11 days later.

The court charged the jury that, as a common carrier, "[t]he bus company here * * * had a duty to use the highest degree of care that human prudence and foresight can suggest in the maintenance of its vehicles and equipment for the safety of its passengers" (see, PJI3d 2:164). On the issue of constructive notice, arising out of the earlier inspection and repair, the trial court submitted to the jury the question of whether "considering the duty of care that is imposed on common carriers with respect to this equipment, a reasonable inspection would have led to the discovery of the condition and its repair" before the accident (emphasis supplied).

The jury found in favor of plaintiff solely on the basis of constructive notice. The Appellate Division affirmed (242 A.D.2d 223, 661 N.Y.S.2d 959), holding that the evidence of constructive notice was legally sufficient to present a jury question, and that the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence. The Court found all of the Transit Authority's remaining arguments to be meritless, without addressing the Authority's objection to the court's instruction on the elevated duty of care owed by common carriers.

We agree with the Appellate Division that the Transit Authority was not entitled to a dismissal of the complaint for legal insufficiency. Thus, the dispositive issue on this appeal is the propriety of the trial court's instruction which embodied the rule of a carrier's duty of exceptional care.

The duty of common carriers to exercise the highest degree of care, like the special rule of vicarious liability overturned in Adams v. New York City Tr. Auth. (supra), was widely adopted at the advent of the age of steam railroads in 19th century America. Their primitive safety features resulted in a phenomenal growth in railroad accident injuries and with them, an explosion in personal injury litigation, significantly affecting the American tort system (see, Friedman, A History of American Law, at 482-484, 485, n.47 [2d ed.1985] ). In this century, however, through technological advances and intense governmental regulation, "public conveyances * * * have become at least as safe as private modes of travel" (Adams v. New York City Tr. Auth., supra, 88 N.Y.2d, at 121, 643 N.Y.S.2d 511, 666 N.E.2d 216).

Time has also disclosed the inconsistency of the carrier's duty of extraordinary care with the fundamental concept of negligence in tort doctrine.

"The whole theory of negligence presupposes some uniform standard of behavior. Yet the infinite variety of situations which may arise makes it impossible to fix definite rules in advance for all conceivable human conduct * * * The standard of conduct which the community demands must be an external and objective one, rather than the individual judgment, good or bad, of the particular actor * * * The courts have dealt with this very difficult problem by creating a fictional person * * * the 'reasonable [person] of ordinary prudence' " (Prosser and Keeton, Torts § 32, at 173-174 [5th ed.] ).

(See also, Restatement [Second] of Torts § 283, comment c ["(t)he chief advantage of this standard of the reasonable (person) is that it enables the triers of fact * * * to look to a community standard rather than an individual one, and at the same time to express their judgment of what that standard is in terms of the conduct of a human being"].)

The objective, reasonable person standard in basic traditional negligence theory, however, necessarily takes into account the circumstances with which the actor was actually confronted when the accident occurred, including the reasonably perceivable risk and gravity of harm to others and any special relationship of dependency between the victim and the...