Marion v. Grand Trunk W. R.R. Co.

• Docket Number: SC 164298
• Decision Date: 05 June 2024
• Parties: MONICA MARION, Personal Representative of the ESTATE OF JACOB MARION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GRAND TRUNK WESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY, STEVEN GOLOMBESKI, and JESSIE WILSON, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

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MONICA MARION, Personal Representative of the ESTATE OF JACOB MARION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GRAND TRUNK WESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY, STEVEN GOLOMBESKI, and JESSIE WILSON, Defendants-Appellants.

No. SC 164298

Supreme Court of Michigan

June 5, 2024

Argued on application for leave to appeal October 4, 2023.

Chief Justice: Elizabeth T. Clement, Justices: Brian K. Zahra David F. Viviano, Richard H. Bernstein, Megan K. Cavanagh Elizabeth M. Welch, Kyra H. Bolden.

Jacob Marion, a minor, through his guardian and next friend Monica Marion, brought a negligence action in the Wayne Circuit Court against Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company and two of its employees, conductor Steven Golombeski and engineer Jessie Wilson. Plaintiff brought the action after a Grand Trunk train struck and injured Jacob as he was walking down the railroad tracks while listening to music through earbuds. Both Golombeski and Wilson saw Jacob walking with his back to the train about three-quarters of a mile, or approximately two minutes, away. Wilson sounded the horn when the train was approximately 18 seconds away from Jacob, as the train approached a street crossing. Golombeski noted that Jacob did not appear to respond to the sound of the horn, and Wilson then sounded the horn in emergency mode. Wilson, however, did not apply the emergency brake until approximately one second before the train struck Jacob. Defendants moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10), arguing that the collision was not caused by any negligence on their part but rather by Jacob's failure to exercise ordinary care for his own safety. The trial court, Annette J. Berry, J. granted the motion, noting that defendants had attempted to alert Jacob of the train's approach and that Jacob was old enough to understand the dangers of trains. Plaintiff appealed, and the Court of Appeals, Gleicher, P.J., and Cavanagh, J. (Letica, J., concurring), reversed, holding that a train engineer has a duty to stop or slow down when a person in the train's path fails to respond to a warning signal. 341 Mich.App. 65 (2022). Defendants sought leave to appeal, and the Supreme Court ordered oral argument on the application, directing the parties to address whether defendants were entitled to presume that Jacob would leave the tracks before being struck by the train; whether defendants had a duty to slow or stop the train to avoid hitting Jacob; and at what point, if any, the entitlement to a presumption that a person will leave the tracks gives way to a duty to act to avoid a collision. 510 Mich. 942 (2022). Subsequently, Jacob passed away, and Monica Marion was substituted as plaintiff in her capacity as personal representative of Jacob's estate.

In an opinion by Chief Justice Clement, joined by Justices Zahra Bernstein, Cavanagh, Welch, and Bolden, the Supreme Court, in lieu of granting leave to appeal, held:

When a train operator sees a person on the tracks, there is a presumption that the person will move to a place of safety. But when it becomes apparent that the person will not or cannot get out of the way, that presumption is overcome, and the train operator has a duty to take steps to avoid a collision. Because there remained genuine issues of material fact as to whether defendants were negligent, the Court of Appeals' ruling in favor of plaintiff was affirmed and the case remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.

1. Whether summary disposition was warranted in this case turned on the scope of defendants' duty. When considering whether a duty exists, courts consider several factors, including the foreseeability of the harm, the degree of certainty of the injury, the closeness of connection between the conduct and the injury, the moral blame attached to the conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, and the burdens and consequences of imposing a duty and the resulting liability for breach. Generally, landowners who should know of frequent trespassers must exercise reasonable care for the safety of trespassers when conducting dangerous activities. With regard to trespassers on railroad tracks, if a train operator sees a person on the tracks, and there is no reason to believe that the person would not heed the danger of the coming train, the train operator can presume the person will move and has no duty to take steps to avoid a collision. However, under Lake Shore & MS R Co v. Miller, 25 Mich. 274, 279-280 (1872), overruled in part on other grounds by Bricker v. Green, 313 Mich. 218 (1946), this presumption gives way to a duty to act to avoid a collision when it becomes apparent that the person will not or cannot move off the tracks. Under Bouwmeester v. Grand Rapids & I R Co, 63 Mich. 557 (1886), this duty requires the train operator to slow the train and, if necessary to preserve life or limb, come to a full stop. When exactly it becomes apparent that a person will not move off the tracks and what is a reasonable action to fulfill the duty to take steps to avoid a collision once that duty arises will depend on the particular facts of each case.

2. There was no support for the proposition that Michigan's switch from contributory to comparative negligence in Placek v. Sterling Hts, 405 Mich. 638 (1979), invalidated large swaths of prior caselaw, particularly caselaw setting out the presumption that a person will move off the tracks and establishing when that presumption gives way to a duty to act to avoid a collision. Under a contributory-negligence scheme, a plaintiff could not recover in a negligence action if their own negligence also caused the injury. Under the current comparative-negligence scheme, a plaintiff whose negligence contributed to their injury may recover against a negligent defendant; their damages award is simply reduced to reflect the extent of their own fault. Accordingly, before Placek, cases were often resolved without defining the full scope of the defendant's duty because they could be decided solely on the basis of plaintiff's contributory negligence, which generally served as a complete bar to recovery. However, pre-Placek precedents regarding the scope of a defendant's duty generally remain valid, including the principle set out in Lake Shore regarding when the presumption that a person will move off the tracks gives way to a duty to act to avoid a collision. While the switch to comparative negligence created distinctions that will sometimes preclude the application of pre-Placek caselaw, these distinctions did not relate to when the presumption that a person will move off the tracks gives way to a duty to act to avoid a collision.

3. The Court of Appeals correctly concluded that summary disposition was not warranted in this case. A reasonable juror could conclude that defendants were negligent in sounding a second horn rather than applying the emergency brake when it first became apparent that Jacob would not move, i.e., after Jacob failed to heed the initial horn blast before the crossing, and there was also a question as to whether defendants had a duty to sound the horn earlier than they initially did. In addition, there was a remaining question of fact regarding defendants' ability to stop the train had they braked as soon as duty required. The first horn was sounded 18 to 19 seconds before the collision, but the train took 719.5 feet to stop. Whether it would have been possible to stop the train before striking Jacob might bear on what actions defendants should have taken when the duty to take steps to avoid a collision was triggered. If reasonable minds were to conclude that duty required defendants to apply the brake after Jacob failed to heed the first horn, they might also have been able to find that it was possible to stop the train in time. Given these genuine questions of material fact, defendants were not entitled to summary disposition.

Affirmed; case remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.

Justice Viviano, concurring, agreed with the majority's recognition of the longstanding legal presumption that a person will leave the railroad tracks when a train is approaching and that a duty to act to avoid a collision only arises when it becomes apparent to the train operator that the person will not or cannot get out of the way, and he also agreed with the majority's decision to affirm the Court of Appeals' conclusion that there was a material question of fact in this case. He wrote separately to express the view that the relevant factual questions in this case were better stated as (1) at what point it became apparent to defendants that Jacob would not get off the tracks, and (2) whether this occurred when there was still time to avoid the collision, given that it does not appear that the train would have been able to stop in time to avoid the collision at the point the majority identified as the time it first became apparent that Jacob would not move, i.e., less than 20 seconds before the collision.

BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH

OPINION

CLEMENT, C.J.

I. INTRODUCTION

This case presents tragic facts involving a train collision. Namely, the train operated by defendants struck Jacob Marion a 14-year-old who was walking along the tracks and did not heed the sound of the horn. We write to clarify the duty on the part of the railroad, specifically regarding when a presumption that a person will leave the tracks gives way to a duty on the part of the train operators to avoid a collision. As our caselaw has long recognized, the presumption that a person will leave the tracks gives way to a duty to act to avoid a collision when it becomes apparent that the person will not or cannot get out of the way. Lake Shore & MS R Co v. Miller, 25 Mich. 274, 279-280 (1872), overruled in part on other grounds by Bricker v. Green, 313...