Danielenko v. Kinney Rent A Car, Inc.
| Decision Date | 12 October 1982 |
| Parties | , 441 N.E.2d 1073 Frank DANIELENKO et al., Respondents, v. KINNEY RENT A CAR, INC., Appellant, et al., Defendants. (And a Third-Party Action.) |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
The essential thrust of plaintiffs' claim is that defendants were negligent in not posting a sufficient number of guards to protect against the surreptitious placement of a bomb in one of their vehicles and in not searching each vehicle prior to rental for detection of hidden harmful devices. Although it is clear that defendants owed plaintiffs a duty of reasonable care, we find that plaintiffs failed to establish a prima facie case of negligence in that they introduced no evidence that defendants in any way breached the duty owed.
Tracealarm, Inc. (Tracealarm), a security agency which transports money under armed guard on behalf of its customers, rents automobiles available to the general public from defendant Kinney Rent A Car (Kinney) for this purpose. Before dawn on May 27, 1971, plaintiff Harold Spink, a Tracealarm employee, arrived at Kinney's garage at 220 East 40th Street in New York City to obtain a vehicle to be used to transport a payroll to United Airlines at Kennedy Airport.
When Spink arrived, one of Kinney's attendants was in a portion of the garage below the main street level where the rental vehicles were stored. The three front bay doors located at the street level were open, and Spink observed no one in the office, also located at street level, at that time. After a few moments the attendant came to the main level. Kinney's records indicated that four employees, including a manager, were on night duty on May 27, 1971.
After obtaining a vehicle from the attendant, Spink drove to the offices of Tracealarm where he parked and locked the car and went into the offices to secure the payroll. He was met by three other Tracealarm employees and the four proceeded to the car with the payroll. Spink drove the vehicle, with the others as passengers, towards Kennedy Airport. While the four Tracealarm employees were driving on the Van Wyck Expressway an explos occurred which destroyed the vehicle and approximately half of the payroll and seriously injured the occupants. The explosion was apparently caused by a bomb secreted under the front passenger seat, for a police expert testified that he recovered a spring and mechanical dial timer from under that seat.
The four injured Tracealarm employees commenced actions against Kinney sounding in negligence. Spink also sought recovery for breach of warranty. Tracealarm sued Kinney for recovery of the payroll money destroyed by the explosion. Kinney filed a third-party complaint against Tracealarm for negligence in not having established adequate procedures to enable its employees to prevent this type of occurrence. Pursuant to postverdict motions all four plaintiff employees were permitted to plead alternative causes of action for breach of warranty against Kinney.
The plaintiffs offered no evidence at the jury trial regarding when or how the bomb was placed in the automobile or by whom. No evidence was presented to suggest any motive for the bombing. The only evidence which would remotely suggest any motive for the bombing was a vague reference to a previous labor dispute. None of the evidence indicated that any of Kinney's vehicles had been vandalized in the past or that anyone had ever tampered with one of the vehicles in a manner designed to cause or resulting in injury to a bailee.
In a pretrial deposition of a Kinney security officer, introduced by plaintiffs at trial, it was stated that as a general practice a returned vehicle is prepared for rerental by examining the vehicle's essential systems, including the lights, brakes, windshield wipers, as well as the oil, battery and wiper fluid...
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