Feldotto v. St. Louis Public Service Co., s. 29087
| Decision Date | 20 December 1955 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 29087,29088,s. 29087 |
| Citation | 285 S.W.2d 30 |
| Parties | Selma FELDOTTO (Plaintiff), Respondent, v. ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY, a corporation, and Sue Strain (Defendants), Appellants. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Carroll J. Donohue, Robert O. Hetlage, Salkey & Jones, St. Louis, for appellant St Louis Public Service Co.
H. P. Tudor, of Strubinger, Tudor, Tombrink & Wion, St. Louis, for appellant Sue Strain.
Gragg & Aubuchon, William R. Schneider, St. Louis, for respondent.
Plaintiff, Selma Feldotto, respondent in this court, instituted this action to recover damages from defendants, St. Louis Public Service Company, a corporation, and Sue Strain (appellants), for injuries sustained by the plaintiff when she was struck by an automobile driven by defendant Strain as plaintiff was alighting from a bus operated by defendant St. Louis Public Service Company. A trial resulted in a verdict for plaintiff in the sum of $5,000 against both defendants. Both defendants have appealed.
A brief summary of the facts is necessary for an understanding of the contentions made on this appeal. In our statement of the facts we are guided by the controlling principle that after a verdict favorable to plaintiff, the reviewing court must consider the evidence in a light most favorable to plaintiff and disregard defendants' evidence unless it tends to aid plaintiff's case. Williamson v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 363 Mo. 508, 252 S.W.2d 295, 297. We must give plaintiff the benefit of all favorable inferences arising from all the evidence, and disregard defendants' evidence where it conflicts with plaintiff's evidence or fails to strength plaintiff's case. Sollenberger v. Kansas City Public Service Co., 356 Mo. 454, 202 S.W.2d 25, 29.
At about 11:00 o'clock on a bright clear summer morning, plaintiff, 58 years old, was a passenger on a westbound Ladue bus operated by defendant St. Louis Public Service Company. The bus was traveling over Clayton Road, a four-lane east-west highway in St. Louis County. As she boarded the bus at the Clayton Court House she asked the driver if he went to Lay Road, and he replied that he did. The regular route led westwardly on Clayton Road to Lay Road, where the bus would make a left turn to go southwardly on Lay Road.
At Lay Road the bus stopped in a position headed west on Clayton Road in the westbound lane next to the center of the road, and the driver opened the front exit doors for plaintiff to alight. After descending the exit steps, she had placed one foot on the pavement of the street, but before she had completely alighted she was struck by the left side of the front fender of the automobile of defendant Sue Strain, traveling west, and passing the bus on the right. The bus driver testified that he looked to the rear of the bus before opening the exit door, but that he saw no vehicle approaching from the east. Defendant Strain testified that she did not sound a warning signal nor swerve nor slacken the speed of her automobile. She testified that she had not observed plaintiff as plaintiff was alighting from the bus, nor at any time before plaintiff was struck.
The contention of major insistence by defendant Public Service Company is that plaintiff failed to prove a claim upon which relief could be granted against it. This contention is based, at least in part, upon a version of the facts unfavorable to plaintiff, and therefore contrary to the view to which this court is committed by basic principles of appellate review. Williamson v. St. Louis Public Service Co., supra; Sollenberger v. Kansas City Public Service Co., supra.
The courts of Missouri have often restated the legal principles applicable to carrier and passenger under circumstances such as those presented on this appeal. The contract between a carrier and a passenger continues not only during the interval of time consumed in transporting the passenger from his starting point to destination, but during the period needed for a safe exit from the vehicle as well. Kelly v. Hannibal & St. J. R. Co., 70 Mo. 604, 609; Straus v. Kansas City, St. J. & C. B. R. Co., 75 Mo. 185; Hurt v. St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co., 94 Mo. 255, 7 S.W. 1. The degree of care required of the carrier for a passenger's safety while he is leaving the vehicle is as high as that required while he is in transit; that is to say, the extraordinary care imposed by the law on carriers of passengers begins when the contract of carriage takes effect on the rights of the parties, and continues unimpaired until that contract ends with deposit at destination; thus protecting passengers as they get on and off conveyances. Weber v. Kansas City Cable R. Co., 100 Mo. 194, 12 S.W. 804, 13 S.W. 587, 7 L.R.A. 819; Grace v. St. Louis R. Co., 156 Mo. 295, 56 S.W. 1121. Part of this duty to safeguard passengers while leaving a car or other vehicle consists of taking care to put them off at a reasonably safe place. Talbot v. Chicago & A. R. Co., 72 Mo.App. 291; Atkinson v. Pacific R. Co., 90 Mo.App. 489; Young v. Missouri Pac. R. Co. 93 Mo.App. 267. Nor is the carrier absolved from liability merely because the passenger is not injured while in the very act of alighting or at the very spot or moment where and when he alighted. Gott v. Kansas City Rys. Co., Mo.Sup., 222 S.W. 827, 830.
The action of the bus driver in opening the exit doors constituted more than a mere invitation to alight, Fillingham v. St. Louis Transit Co., 102 Mo.App. 573, 77 S.W. 314, 319; Caley v. Kansas City, etc., Public Service Co., 226 Mo.App. 934, 48 S.W.2d 25, 29; it was an assurance to plaintiff that she could alight there with safety. Williamson v. St. Louis Public Service Co., supra; Caley v. Kansas City, etc., Public Service Co., supra.
Implicit also in this defendant's argument, although not expressly so stated, is the contention that the proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries was the negligence of the defendant motorist rather than of the defendant carrier. The general rule is 'that if a defendant is negligent and his negligence combines with that of another, or with any other independent, intervening cause, he is liable, although his negligence was not the sole negligence or the sole proximate cause, and although his negligence, without such other independent, intervening cause, would not have produced the injury.' Harrison v. Kansas City Electric Light Co., 195 Mo. 606, 93 S.W. 951, 956, 7 L.R.A.,N.S., 293.
In determining proximate cause the test is not whether a reasonably prudent person would have foreseen the particular injury which happened, but whether after the occurrence the injury appears to be the reasonable and probable consequences of defendant's act or omission. Floyd v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo.Sup., 280 S.W.2d 74; Gray v. Kurn, 345 Mo. 1027, 137 S.W.2d 558, 567. Where several causes producing an injury are concurrent and each is an efficient cause without which the injury would not have happened, the injury may be attributed to all or any of the causes, and recovery may be had against either or all of the responsible persons, although one of them was more culpable, and the duty owed by them to the injured person was not the same. Byars v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 334 Mo. 278, 66 S.W.2d 894, 900.
The briefs filed by the parties to this appeal do not cite a Missouri precedent which is factually analogous. However, there are cases of other jurisdictions which apply basic principles identical with those of Missouri:
In Cleveland R. Co. v. Crooks, 125 Ohio St. 280, 181 N.E. 102, 103, the injured plaintiff, Mrs. Wayne Crooks, was a passenger on a motorbus which stopped at a point about ten feet from the curb. In alighting from the bus at that point, plaintiff was injured by a motor vehicle which attempted to pass to the right of the bus. Affirming the liability of the carrier, the Supreme Court of Ohio declared:
'The safe and sane point for the stoppage of a motorbus, whether the stop be regular or irregular, is at the curb,...
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