Warner v. Capital Transit Company
| Decision Date | 10 June 1958 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. 417-56. |
| Citation | 162 F. Supp. 253 |
| Parties | Carrie L. WARNER et al., Plaintiffs, v. CAPITAL TRANSIT COMPANY et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Frank Roberson, Washington, D. C., for defendant Capital Transit Co.
Wilford Lawson, Washington, D. C., for defendants Independent Taxi Owners' Ass'n, and for Philip Profeta.
In the form of a request for the submission of a special interrogatory to the jury, the defendant Capital Transit Company asserts a right of indemnity against its co-defendant in the event that both defendants are held liable in this action to recover damages for personal injuries. The question to be determined by the Court at this juncture is whether such a right of indemnity exists.
The plaintiff was a passenger on a bus of the defendant Capital Transit Company. The plaintiff claims that as a result of a sudden stop made by the bus, she was thrown and sustained personal injuries. These facts are sufficient to make out a prima facie case of negligence as against the Capital Transit Company on the theory of res ipsa loquitur. The Capital Transit Company, while admitting that the bus driver made a sudden stop, asserts that this course was necessitated by the negligence of the driver of a taxicab, the defendant Philip Profeta, who was an agent of the defendant Independent Taxi Owners' Association, in that Profeta, while driving his cab a short distance in advance of the bus, suddenly shifted lanes, cut off the bus, and made it necessary for the bus driver to come to a sudden stop to avoid a collision. The position of the taxi driver is that he was sufficiently in advance of the bus so that the bus driver could have come to a gradual stop without running the risk of a collision with the cab.
The Capital Transit Company is held to the highest degree of care and a violation of the highest degree of care, insofar as its passengers are concerned, constitutes negligence on its part.1 On the other hand, the taxi driver, in respect to the plaintiff involved in this action, is liable only for ordinary negligence. It is claimed by the Capital Transit Company that if the jury finds both defendants guilty of negligence, the Capital Transit Company is, nevertheless, entitled to indemnity as against its codefendants, if the jury holds the Capital Transit Company liable for failure to exercise the highest degree of care and not merely ordinary care. On this theory, counsel for the Capital Transit Company requests the Court to submit a special interrogatory to the jury, to be answered in the event that the jury finds a verdict against both defendants, the special interrogatory to designate whether the Capital Transit Company is being held by the jury on the theory of a violation of the highest degree of care or only on the theory of ordinary negligence.
At common law, there was no contribution as among joint tort-feasors. The law left the parties where it found them. The more enlightened doctrine of contribution among joint tort-feasors is of recent origin and has been introduced only in some jurisdictions, among them, the District of Columbia.2 The law does not, however, apportion degrees of negligence as between joint tort-feasors, and does not allocate contribution on such a ratio.
There are indeed some situations in which one joint tort-feasor is entitled to indemnity as against another. Such a contingency arises if one joint tort-feasor is not guilty of any negligence himself but is answerable for the negligence of another, as, for example, in the case of a master and servant. If the servant is found guilty of negligence and the master is held liable on the theory of respondeat superior, the latter has a right of indemnity as against the servant. If, however, each of two or more joint tort-feasors is guilty of negligence in some degree, the fact that the negligence of one may be greater than that of another does not give rise to a right of indemnity. In fact, it does not change the method of apportioning contribution, because contribution can be recovered in exact proportion to the number of joint tort-feasors.
Admittedly, there are no decisions of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, nor of any other Federal appellate court, that the diligence of counsel has been...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
United Air Lines, Inc. v. Wiener
...tends to regard contribution as the exclusive remedy between concurrently negligent tortfeasors. See Warner v. Capital Transit Company, 162 F.Supp. 253 (D.C.D.C. 1958); D. C. Transit System, Inc. v. Slingland, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 264, 266 F.2d 465, 72 A.L.R.2d 1290 (1959), cert. den. 361 U.S. ......
-
Wells v. Hense
...1992). Although "[t]he [common] law of the District of Columbia does not recognize degrees of negligence," Warner v. Capital Transit Co., 162 F.Supp. 253, 256 (D.D.C. 1958), where there is a statute that precludes liability for ordinary negligence,13 courts have defined gross negligence as ......
-
Hernandez v. Dist. of Columbia
...As a general rule, however, “[t]he law of the District of Columbia does not recognize degrees of negligence.” Warner v. Capital Transit Co., 162 F.Supp. 253, 256 (D.D.C.1958), citing Atchison v. Wills, 21 App. D.C. 548, 561 (D.C.Cir.1903). Plaintiff asserts that because courts in the Distri......
-
DISTRICT OF COL. v. Wash. Hosp. Center, 94-CV-319.
...rules which have developed through our precedents. See Early Settlers, supra, 221 A.2d at 923 (citing Warner v. Capital Transit Co., 162 F.Supp. 253, 255 (D.D.C.1958)). Therefore, we agree with those jurisdictions which hold that the initial tortfeasor and the medical attendant who aggravat......