Johnston v. Greyhound Corporation
| Decision Date | 02 April 1956 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 8402. |
| Citation | 139 F. Supp. 551 |
| Parties | Alma K. JOHNSTON v. The GREYHOUND CORPORATION, a body corporate. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
Dale L. Jernburg, Jeremiah T. Riley, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.
Thomas G. Andrew, H. Beale Rollins, Baltimore, Md., Rollins, Smalkin, Weston & Andrew, Baltimore, Md., for defendant.
The plaintiff sues for injuries occurring to her while a passenger in a Greyhound bus, alleged to have been due to the negligent and careless driving of the bus, and the defective and unsafe condition of the bus because of the absence of handholds on the ends of the seats. More particularly the plaintiff alleges that the negligence of the bus driver was in causing a sudden, unexpected and unusual or abnormal stopping of the bus while she was walking forward in the bus shortly after it had started from a stop made to let off and take on passengers. She alleges that as a result she was caused to fall and break her ninth rib on the left side and to have sustained an aggravation of a former injury to the lumbar vertabrae. The defendant's answer denies any negligence on the part of the driver of the bus and also alleges in defense that the injuries to the plaintiff were caused in part by her own contributory negligence. The case has been heard fully on the evidence in court and I have reviewed the material parts of the testimony as reported by the court reporter in connection with the exhibits in the case. My conclusion on the whole evidence is that the plaintiff failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that there was negligence on the part of the bus driver, or that there was insufficient equipment of the bus for ordinary use by passengers; and that the plaintiff's injuries were also in large part due to her own contributory negligence. The judgment therefore must be entered for the defendant.
The bus was apparently the ordinary type of Greyhound bus used for overland trips. It was in use on the particular occasion as a local or commuter bus from Washington in the District of Columbia, to Glendale, Maryland, about 25 miles from Washington. Glendale is on what is known as route 50, sometimes called the Defense Highway, between Washington, D. C. and Annapolis, Maryland. The date of the accident was March 18, 1955 and the weather was good and the road dry. The plaintiff's fall occurred at or about a place called Sunnybrook, approximately six miles from the bus terminal in Washington.
The interior arrangement of the bus is that passengers enter by doors opened and closed by the driver at the front end of the bus. The driver is seated on the front platform slightly below the floor level of the passenger portion of the bus. There is a partition behind him which, to a large extent, obscures the view of the driver by the passengers. There is an aisle from the front to the rear of the bus about 18 inches wide with seats on both sides bordering on the aisle, each seat about two feet from the one in front, and accommodating two passengers. The bus has no regular stops on the particular run. It is filled at the terminal but no standees are permitted when the bus leaves there. The bus has no scheduled stops but does stop at various places on the route to pick up and let off passengers. On the late afternoon run the bus leaves the Washington terminal filled with passengers and goes to Glendale, returning empty to Washington. In the morning rush hours the bus leaves the terminal at Washington and goes to Glendale empty and returns to Washington filled with passengers.
The plaintiff boarded the bus at the Washington terminal about 5:30 P.M., March 18, 1955. It made several stops before reaching the particular stop at Sunnybrook where it frequently did stop on such a run both to let off passengers and take them on if they were waiting to board the bus. According to the plaintiff's own testimony she boarded the bus at the Washington terminal and took a seat near the rear end of the bus on the aisle, there being another passenger at the window seat. She says that when the bus stopped at Sunnybrook, about two or three miles from Landover where she lived and intended to leave the bus, the passenger on the window seat beside her desired to alight and she arose to let him out. As there were then some empty seats on the bus near the front end, she started to walk up the aisle toward the front of the bus in order to take a more forward seat. She says that after the bus had stopped at Sunnybrook and started again and while she was still walking forward, the bus suddenly and unexpectedly stopped after it had proceeded only a short distance, possibly about 40 feet from the Sunnybrook stop. Plaintiff states that this sudden and unexpected stopping of the bus, so soon after starting, caused her to fall and strike her chest against the side or metal foot rung of one of the seats, thereby breaking her ninth rib, for which she was hospitalized for several days, and causing her to lose three or four months from her then occupation as a bookkeeper for an insurance company in Washington. She returned to work in September but was forced by the condition of her health to discontinue activity in the following December, and has not resumed gainful occupation since then.
The plaintiff is a woman about 59 years of age of stout, rather heavy build. She had had a serious automobile accident in 1951 by reason of a truck striking her passenger automobile while she was driving. This resulted in a serious injury to her lumbar vertabrae and she made a settlement of her tort claim against the truck for $10,000. She says that she continued her activity thereafter for several years being principally occupied in solicitation for an advertising agency, driving her own automobile on long journeys through various States. She also claims that her fall in the Greyhound bus in 1955 has aggravated her former lumbar vertabrae injury with the result that she is now suffering from sciatica caused by what is medically thought to be an impingement of the cartilaginous discs in the spine against the sciatic nerve. There was considerable medical testimony along this line but in view of the conclusion reached I do not find it necessary to determine the particular extent of the plaintiff's injuries.
On the question of liability, the testimony of the bus driver is in direct conflict...
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...'like he was in a hurry' are not sufficient in this state to establish negligence on the part of the operator. Johnston v. Greyhound Corp., 139 F.Supp. 551, 555-556 (D.Md. 1956); Kaufman v. Baltimore Transit Co., 197 Md. 141, 146, 78 A.2d 464, 467 (1951); Carolina Coach Co. v. Bradley, supr......
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...car, merely by adjectival descriptions of the nature of the sudden start or stop." Id. at 438, 160 A.2d 791 (quoting Johnston v. Greyhound Corp., 139 F.Supp. 551, 555 (1956)). In Retkowsky, the Court further explained; 222 Md. at 438, 160 A.2d [Plaintiff] made no attempt to show any unusual......
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Smith v. Baltimore Transit Co., 63
...a discussion of the cases in Baltimore Transit Co. v. Sun Cab. Co., 210 Md. 555, 560, 124 A.2d 567.' In Johnston v. Greyhound Corp., D.C., 139 F.Supp. 551, 555, 556, Judge Chestnut, after citing Kaufman v. Baltimore Transit Co., supra; Przyborowski v. Baltimore Transit Co., supra; and Broca......
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Retkowsky v. Baltimore Transit Co.
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