Miller v. Robinson

Marbury, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On July 10, 1962, Arnold R. Miller, plaintiff-appellant, joined William Robinson, defendant-appellee, at the Turf Valley Country Club, for a round of golf, the appellant having accepted an invitation by the appellee to be a passenger in the latter’s rented golf cart. Both parties teed off at the second hole, with Mliler’s ball going to the right side of the fairway and Robinson’s ball ³³⁶ slicing to the left (Robinson is left handed) and coming to rest at the greater distance from the elusive green. The two players got into the cart and Mr. Robinson drove along the golf cart path, which is on the right side of the fairway, and then made a left turn off the path so as to go in the general direction of his ball.

The force of the turn threw the. passenger, Miller, out of the cart, and as a result his left arm was broken. Miller instituted suit in the Superior Court of Baltimore City, alleging in his declaration that the injury sustained by him was caused by the defendant Robinson’s excessive speed in driving the cart, failure on the part of the driver to keep the cart under proper control, and his failure to warn the passenger when he was going to make the turn. A trial was held before Chief Judge Manley, sitting without a jury, and at the conclusion of the case the judge rendered a verdict in favor of the defendantappellee. Judge Manley said in his oral opinion that he found from a consideration of all of the evidence that the plaintiff had not shown the defendant to be guilty of primary negligence and thus could not recover; and, in any event, even if primary negligence had been shown, the evidence revealed that the plaintiff was contributorily negligent and had assumed the risk of such an accident.

At the trial the plaintiff testified that “suddenly Bill [defendant] made a very sharp turn to the left, and I just flew out of the cart,” and later on cross examination the witness reiterated: “Now, for some reason, Bill suddenly made a left turn to go down, apparently, to where his ball was.” Mr. Miller also testified that the driver had given him no warning that he was about to make the left turn, but admitted that it “was not usual” for the operator of a golf cart to warn his passenger that he was going to turn. Parenthetically it may be observed that a left turn can scarcely be made surreptitiously by a driver of a golf cart such as the one here involved, since the steering mechanism is in the center of the cart, between the driver and his passenger, and to make a turn to the left one or both hands of the operator must grasp the steering bar or tiller and make a counter-clockwise thrust. The plaintiff further testified that he knew that the defendant’s ball was on the left side of the fairway, was the furthest from the green, and that under normal ³³⁷ golfing custom the ball furthest from the green would be the one first hit. The defendant testified that he did not see anything unusual about this particular left turn but that he could not recall specifically in what manner the turn had been made.

There was no evidence that the cart was driven at other than a prudent rate of speed. Robinson’s rented golf cart was a three-wheeled vehicle, which had one seat thirty-seven inches long and twenty inches wide running the whole width of the cart. There were two individual backs to the seat, each sixteen inches wide and twelve inches high, one behind the driver and one in back of the passenger. The sides of the cart were open except for an armrest on each side which was six and three-quarters inches in length.

Pictures of the vehicle introduced into evidence by the plaintiff-appellant indicated that the armrest would normally give little lateral support to a passenger, since it appeared to be designed as an elbow rest and not as something to clutch to prevent one from falling from the cart. Miller testified that at the time of the accident to the best of his knowledge he was holding on to the armrest of the vehicle with his right hand. Testimony revealed that the most practical manner for a passenger to avert being thrown out of such a golf cart