Southeastern Greyhound Lines v. Woods

• Decision Date: 08 December 1944
• Citation: 298 Ky. 773,184 S.W.2d 93
• Parties: SOUTHEASTERN GREYHOUND LINES v. WOODS.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

184 S.W.2d 93

298 Ky. 773

SOUTHEASTERN GREYHOUND LINES v. WOODS.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

December 8, 1944

Appeal from Circuit Court, Whitley County; Flem D. Sampson, Judge.

Action by Lizzie Woods against the Southeastern Greyhound Lines for injuries sustained in alighting from defendant's bus. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

Reversed.

H. C. Gillis, of Williamsburg, and R. W. Keenon, of Lexington, for appellant.

L. O Siler, of Williamsburg, for appellee.

STANLEY Commissioner.

The decision of the case depends upon what the duty a common carrier by motor bus is with respect to the place along the highway at which it discharges a passenger. The appeal is from a judgment for $2,000, recovered by the appellee, Mrs Lizzie Woods. Her injuries consisted of a severe sprain and twist of her knee and body.

Mrs Woods and her 19 year old son were passengers on a bus of the appellant, traveling south to Williamsburg, on March 17, 1943. They lived about 100 yards up a country road to the west of the highway, a mile or so north of Williamsburg. On signal of the son the bus stopped at the road entrance. It was customary for the busses to stop at this point upon request. Mrs. Woods was 60 years old and weighed 210 pounds. Her son preceded her down the steps, carrying the baggage. He assisted his mother to alight and no request for assistance was made of the operators of the bus. It was about 8 o'clock at night and dark. The lights of the bus were turned on and the defendant's witnesses say a spotlight illuminated the steps, but the plaintiff and her son say it did not. Mrs. Woods testified that she stepped down on to the concrete paving of the highway with one foot and with the other stepped into a hole alongside the paving. The son testified the hole was eight or ten inches deep and about a foot from the edge of the concrete. Stepping into the hole caused her to fall back against the bus momentarily, although she was holding on to her son for support.

The plaintiff's evidence was that the bus was stopped with the steps just off the flare or rounding mouth of the side road instead of near the center where the way was smooth and clear. The hole or gully had been made by wagons and cars turning into and coming out of the side road, and by the washing out of the gravel of which the shoulder of the highway and the road were made. The son knew the hole was there. The mother did not, but knew there were ruts in the road. The evidence for the defendant was that the steps of the bus were near or at the center of the side road and that there was no hole where the passengers got off.

The injured passenger had a ticket for Williamsburg and, of course, was entitled to transportation there. The stopping of the bus near her home was for her convenience and accommodation. She had gotten off there upon two previous occasions.

The case was submitted to the jury upon the predicate of the carrier owing its passenger the highest degree of care, not only to transport her to her destination but to afford or furnish a reasonably safe place to get off the bus. The instruction was patterned after that approved in Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Scarbrough, 208 Ky. 79, 270 S.W. 494. The defendant as appellant, insists that that is not a correct statement of the law with respect to the place of discharge under the circumstances of the case and that it was entitled to a directed verdict because the passenger had chosen the place to get off and the company had accommodated her.

First, we may say that there is no liability of the carrier for failing to assist the passenger to alight. The conditions were not such as to impute knowledge or an appreciation of the need for its employe to assist the passenger without request, and, as we have said no request was made. The adult son rendered that aid. Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Dyer, 152 Ky. 264, 153 S.W. 194, 48 L.R.A., N.S., 816; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Bowman, 208 Ky. 39, 270 S.W. 471; Ken-Ten Coach Co. v. Davis, 289 Ky. 329, 158 S.W.2d 624.

It is quite generally stated as fundamental law that it is the duty of a common carrier to exercise the highest degree of care towards its passengers. The statement may be too general and broad. It may be more definitely stated as the duty to exercise the highest degree of care, skill and diligence for the safety of the passenger as is required by the nature and risk of the undertaking, in view of the mode of conveyance and other circumstances involved, which may vary according to the immediate activity, instrumentality, time or place. 13 C.J.S., Carriers, §§ 678, 683; Annotations, 96 A.L.R. 727; Shelton Taxi Co. v. Bowling, 244 Ky. 817, 51 S.W.2d 468; Chesapeake & O. R. Co. v. Hay, 248 Ky. 69, 58 S.W.2d 228; Dix v. Gross, 271 Ky. 231, 111 S.W.2d 673. This duty of observing the highest degree of care exists while the passenger is in transit and that continues until he has safely alighted from the vehicle, or at least has been given an opportunity to alight. But as respects the carrier's platforms, premises and stations the duty is only to exercise ordinary care to keep them in reasonably safe condition and reasonably lighted. Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Scarbrough, 208 Ky. 79, 270 S.W. 494; Trout's Adm'r v. Ohio Valley Electric R. Co., 241 Ky. 144, 43 S.W.2d 507.

Although they deal with the subject of a safe place at which to discharge passengers, we put aside cases involving injuries to passengers by other traffic where they were discharged in the street, except as they may reflect the applicable principle of law. Of such are Trout's Adm'r v. Ohio Valley Electric R. Co., supra; Tinnell v. Louisville R. Co., 250 Ky. 245, 62 S.W.2d 467; Taylor v. Patterson's Adm'r, 272 Ky. 415, 114 S.W.2d 488. See also Lewis v. Pacific Greyhound Lines, 147 Or. 588, 34 P.2d 616, 617, 96 A.L.R. 718, and annotations.

As is well said in 10 Am.Jur., Carriers, Sec. 1395: 'A passenger bus company stands in a different position from that of a railroad or street car company. A railroad ordinarily has exclusive control over its stations and grounds where passengers are received and discharged and, in such case, the relationship of carrier and passenger continues, after the latter has alighted from the train, for a period of time reasonably necessary to enable him to leave the carrier's premises. The same situation does not ordinarily obtain in the case of passengers upon busses.'

We quote also this pertinent statement of the law from Lewis v Pacific Greyhound Lines, supra: 'An automobile bus is able to move or stop in the street at the will of the driver. Ordinarily stations are not maintained by such carriers. The safety of the place afforded the passenger for alighting is entirely within the control of the driver, and passengers are discharged to suit their convenience. The degree of care to be exercised must be commensurate with the danger involved. To discharge a passenger on a highway where he would be subject to the dangers of vehicular traffic would clearly not meet the degree of care which the law exacts. As stated in Roden v. Connecticut Co., 113 Conn. 408, 155 A. 721, 722: 'The duty of a common carrier of passengers includes an obligation to furnish them a safe place in which to alight, as far as that place is provided by it or is affected or conditioned by the movement of the vehicle, and that duty is only satisfied if it exercises the highest degree of care and skill which reasonably may be expected of intelligent and prudent persons engaged in such a business, in view of the instrumentalities employed and the dangers naturally to be apprehended.'' In Hensley v. Braden, 262 Ky. 672, 91 S.W.2d 34, we pointed out the difference in the construction or application of the general rule as to the duty of furnishing safe passage to and from a car in the case of operating a taxicab as compared with a railroad since the taxicab operator takes up and discharges passengers on the street. We held that such a carrier is not under a duty to advise or...