Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. Seymour

CATHELL, J. The case before us concerns an incident involving a Metro-bus belonging to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (“WMATA”), petitioner, and the injury that Ms. Josephine Seymour, respondent, a passenger on the Metrobus, sustained when the bus came to a sudden and abrupt stop. Seymour filed suit in the District Court of Maryland sitting in Prince George’s County against WMATA and the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund — Uninsured Division (“MAIF”) 1 for the injuries sustained as a result of the Metrobus driver suddenly braking to avoid a collision with a “phantom vehicle” which pulled out from a parking lot and onto the main boulevard in front of the bus. Trial was held in the District Court on April 21, 2003 and, at the conclusion of the trial, judgment was entered against both WMATA and MAIF, jointly and severally, in the amount of $20,000.00. On appeal to the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, the Circuit Court, on September 17, 2004, issued an Opinion and Order affirming the decision of the District Court.

WMATA thereafter filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari to this Court on October 20, 2004. On December 17, 2004, we granted the petition. WMATA v. Seymour, 384 Md. 448 , 863 A.2d 997 (2004). Petitioner presents one question for our review: “Did the Circuit Court of Prince George’s County err in holding that WMATA cannot avail itself of the boulevard ²²¹ rule when a claim is brought by a passenger of WMATA due to WMATA’s higher duty of care as a common carrier?” We hold that, under the facts found by the District Court judge, he did not err in holding WMATA liable for the injuries suffered by Seymour due to the bus’s sudden stop.

As we shall explain, the circumstances surrounding the sudden stop allowed for the fact finder, ie., the District Court judge, to find that certain actions by the bus driver while traveling on the boulevard were a proximate cause of Seymour’s injuries. Facts At approximately 7:00 p.m. on August 25, 2001, a WMATA Metrobus traveling eastbound on University Boulevard, 2 on the right curbside lane, made a service stop near the intersection of University Boulevard and Riggs Road in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Ms. Josephine Seymour boarded the bus at this service stop. Seymour, who was sixty-four-years-old when the incident underlying this lawsuit occurred, was seated in the bench-like area of the bus situated directly behind the bus driver and facing the right side of the bus.

This area of seating is commonly referred to as “priority seating” and is generally to be used by the elderly and the handicapped, as it is less constricting as compared to other seats and closer to the door of the bus. All the seats were substantially occupied, requiring some on the bus to stand in the aisle during the commute. As the bus left the service stop, first entering the right turn lane, and neared the intersection of University Boulevard and Riggs Road, the bus driver initially observed a phantom vehicle approaching an exit from a parking lot to his right but believed that it was going to stop. He continued to accelerate.

The phantom vehicle did not stop, and the bus driver was forced to brake abruptly in order to avoid a collision with the ²²² phantom vehicle, as it suddenly pulled out in front of the bus and onto University Boulevard. The bus driver stated at trial before the District Court that at the time of the incident, “traffic was kind of heavy, like rush hour,” and that he saw the phantom vehicle approaching the roadway and it appeared to be slowing down but, “at the last second,” it entered onto University Boulevard in front of the bus. By his application of the brakes, the bus driver was able to avoid contact with the phantom vehicle, which was never identified beyond the most basic description by the bus driver that it was a “black car.” 3 Because of this sudden stop, however, Seymour was violently thrown from her sitting position behind the bus driver and fell to the floor of the bus, causing her to suffer a fracture to her right leg. At least one other passenger on the bus that day was also injured because of this incident and Ms. Glenis Valdez, the daughter of this injured woman who was also with her mother on the bus when the incident occurred, testified at the District Court hearing as to her recollection of what occurred prior to, during and after the bus’s abrupt stop.

Aware that Seymour, and possibly others, appeared to have been injured by the bus’s sudden stop, the bus driver proceeded to drive the bus onto Riggs Road and stop alongside the curb to wait for emergency services to arrive. Seymour testified that she remained on the floor of the bus until paramedics assisted her off the bus and into an ambulance. Seymour thereafter sued WMATA for the injuries she sustained from her fall. At trial in the District Court, Seymour testified that she remembered the bus quickly accelerating from the service stop before the bus driver applied the brakes and she was thrown to the floor.

Ms. Valdez also ²²³ testified that she remembered the bus driver accelerating from the service stop at what she perceived to be an abnormally fast rate before the bus’s abrupt stop also caused her mother to be thrown from her seat. Discussion In Maryland, to succeed on a negligence claim, a plaintiff must prove four well-established elements: “ ‘(1) that the defendant was under a duty to protect the plaintiff from injury, (2) that the defendant breached that duty, (3) that the plaintiff suffered actual injury or loss, and (4) that the loss or injury proximately resulted from the defendant’s breach of the duty.’ ” BG & E v. Lane, 338 Md. 34, 43 , 656 A.2d 307, 311 (1995) (quoting Rosenblatt v. Exxon, 335 Md. 58, 76 , 642 A.2d 180, 188 (1994)). See also Todd v. Mass Transit Administration, 373 Md. 149, 155 , 816 A.2d 930, 933 (2003). We have defined duty as “ ‘ “an obligation, to which the law will give recognition and effect, to conform to a particular standard of conduct toward another.” ’ ” Todd, 373 Md. at 155 , 816 A.2d at 933 -34 (quoting Muthukumarana, 370 Md. at 486, 805 A.2d at 395 (quoting Ashburn v. Anne Arundel County, 306 Md. 617, 627 , 510 A.2d 1078, 1083 (1986))).

A common carrier owes its passengers something more than an ordinary duty of care during transport. In regard to the degree of the duty a common carrier such as WMATA owes its passengers, Judge Battaglia stated for the Court in Todd : “A common carrier owes its passengers the highest degree of care to provide safe means and methods of transportation for them. See MTA v. Miller, 271 Md. 256, 259 , 315 A.2d 772, 774 (1974); St. Michelle v. Catania, 252 Md. 647, 651 , 250 A.2d 874, 876 (1969). We succinctly described this heightened duty in MTA v. Miller, 271 Md. at 259 , 315 A.2d at 774 (1974): ‘A common carrier is not an insurer of safety of its passengers, but it is bound to employ the highest degree ²²⁴ of care for their safety, consistent with the nature of the undertaking.

It owes its passengers a duty to deliver them to their destination as expeditiously as possible, consistent with safety.’ ” Todd, 373 Md. at 156-57 , 816 A.2d at 934 (emphasis added). Cf. Gunther v. Smith, 78 Md.App. 508 , 553 A.2d 1314 (1989) (operator of hayride at employer-sponsored picnic was not a common carrier, and thus operator owed passengers of hayride duty of ordinary care under the circumstances). Thus, when a passenger suffers injury while onboard a common carrier, such as a taxi cab, a train, or, as in this case, a WMATA Metrobus, and the passenger thereafter sues the common carrier under a negligence theory, the pivotal question to determine is whether the act of the common carrier that led to the injury, here the rapid acceleration and then the sudden stopping of the bus, under the circumstances, was a negligent act under the heightened duty of care applicable to common carriers in this State.

In Comm’r of Motor Vehicles v. Baltimore & Annapolis R.R. Co., 257 Md. 529 , 263 A.2d 592 (1970), this Court was presented with a case in which a passenger was injured when he fell to the floor of the bus he was riding. The specific circumstances leading to the fall were described thus: “Seeing no traffic ahead or to the right, the bus driver started up [after stopping at a stop sign]. After he had gone about forty feet, he says a small white-topped foreign car[ 4 ] cut sharply in front of the bus from the left. The driver stopped the bus in time to avoid contact, and [the passenger] fell to the floor of the bus.” Id. at 531-32 , 263 A.2d at 594 (alterations added) (footnote added).

We affirmed the judgments entered in the Circuit Court, which were entered after the trial judge directed ²²⁵ verdicts for the bus owner and the bus driver at the close of the plaintiffs case. In doing so, we stated: “We think the trial judge correctly directed verdicts for the owner and driver of the bus. The plaintiff in a negligence action bears the burden of establishing that it was the negligence of the defendant which caused his injuries without disclosing the intervention of any independent factor which caused those injuries. Jones v. Baltimore Transit Co., 211 Md. 423, 426 , 127 A.2d 649 .

A passenger on a bus who is injured as a result of a stop of the bus establishes an inference that the stop was due to negligence of the driver where he shows that the stop was extraordinarily sudden or violent (so long as in doing so there are not shown other circumstances, besides such negligence, which necessitated the stop). Kaufman v. Baltimore Transit Co., 197 Md. 141, 146 , 78 A.2d 464 . It is, however, well settled in this State that a passenger on a bus or other common carrier who bases a negligence action on the sudden stop of the carrier cannot establish a case ‘merely by adjectival descriptions of the nature of the stop,’ but rather must show in addition some ‘definite, factual incident’ created by the stop which shows it to be so abnormal and extraordinary that it can be legally found to have constituted negligence in operation. Retkowsky v. Baltimore Transit Co., 222 Md. 433, 438 , 160 A.2d 791 .” Comm’r of Motor Vehicles, 257 Md. at 533 , 263 A.2d at 594-5 .

After finding that there was insufficient testimony at trial to establish that a definitive factual incident occurred that would permit the inference that the bus’s sudden stop legally constituted negligence, this Court went on to assume, arguendo, that even if “the plaintiff sufficiently proved the abnormality and negligence of the stop, there are other facts and circumstances which prevent the inference that the stop was due to the negligence of the driver.” Id. at 534 , 263 A.2d at 595 . We then stated that “[rjeasonable minds would not disagree that a driver who is confronted with the sudden appearance of another vehicle directly in front of him acts as a reasonably prudent man by stopping as quickly as possible.” Id. at 534- ²²⁶ 35, 263 A.2d at 595 . 5 Thus, if exigent circumstances require that a common carrier, being operated normally and safely, suddenly stops in an attempt to avoid a collision with an unanticipated and dangerous obstacle on the roadway (be it another automobile, a person, substantial debris, etc.), generally the common carrier will not be liable if one of its passengers is injured as a result of the sudden stop that was made to avoid the advent of a possibly more dangerous situation. As we noted, unlike the factual circumstances before us in Comm’r of Motor Vehicles , in the case sub judice it was found by the District Court judge that the bus was accelerating abnormally even though the bus driver was aware that the phantom vehicle approaching an exit onto the boulevard had not come to a stop. Thus, a definite factual incident occurred that was caused by the prior rapid acceleration of the bus and then by the sudden stop of the bus, i.e., that Seymour fractured her leg after being thrown from her seat.

These facts permit the initial inference that the bus’s sudden stop legally constituted negligence. As the District Court judge stated in his remarks at the end of the trial: “There’s no question in my mind that the Plaintiff was ... firmly in her seat. There’s no evidence that she was [anywhere] other than in her seat. [T]here was a reason ... that she was thrown out of her seat ... the testimony was that the bus had accelerated, and within a relatively short period of time, I believe the time that [the bus driver] gave was pretty accurate, 60-90 feet, [ ] jammed on his brakes, causing the Plaintiff to ... significantly fall out of [her] seat, because testimony was that she rolled up the aisle, [ ] depending on whose estimate you take, eight, ten, ²²⁷ twelve feet, and [ ] obviously landed with [a] velocity significant enough to have fractured her tibia, where it entered into the ankle.” [Alterations added.] [Emphasis added.] In the normal operation of a bus, passengers are generally not thrown from their properly seated positions. WMATA’s central contention is that the so-called boulevard rule, or boulevard law, which “give[s] preference to drivers on the highways when they encounter other drivers attempting to enter or cross through highways,” Myers v. Bright, 327 Md. 395 , 398 n. 1, 609 A.2d 1182 , 1183 n. 1 (1992), shields it completely from liability for Seymour’s injuries under the facts as found by the District Court.

Whether this contention proves correct will require an examination of the boulevard law and the relevant cases in which it has been of import. We have stated that the purpose of the boulevard law “is intended to expedite the flow of traffic on the boulevard.” Dean v. Redmiles, 280 Md. 137, 147 , 374 A.2d 329, 335 (1977). The law is currently codified at Maryland Code (1977, 1999 Repl.Vol.), §§ 21-403 & 21-404 of the Transportation Article. Section 21-104 of the Transportation Article, however, is the section relevant to the case now before us.

It states, in pertinent part: “§ 21-404. Vehicle entering highway from other than a highway; vehicle entering paved highway from unpaved highway. (a) Entering highivay from other than a highway — Duty to stop. — The driver of a vehicle about to enter or cross a highway from a private road or driveway or from any other place that is not a highway shall stop. (b) Same — Yielding right-of-way. — The driver of a vehicle about to enter or cross a highway from a private road or driveway or from any other place that is not a highway shall yield the right-of-way to any other vehicle approaching on the highway.” ²²⁸ Because the phantom vehicle was alleged to have entered onto University Boulevard as it exited a shopping center parking lot in close proximity to the approaching bus, as between the driver of the bus and the phantom vehicle, the driver of the phantom vehicle was the unfavored driver in the lexicon of the boulevard law and thus in violation of § 21-104 of the Transportation Article.

The bus driver, therefore, was the favored driver, vis-a-vis the driver of the phantom vehicle even though the bus driver had seen the phantom vehicle approaching the parking lot exit, but mistakenly believed that the phantom vehicle was going to stop. However, as we explained in Dean v. Redmiles, supra, which concerned a fatal accident that occurred when a vehicle traveling on a highway struck another vehicle that had stalled while being backed out of a parking space and onto the highway: “Cases reaching this Court arising under the boulevard rule fall into eight categories, the suit of the favored driver against the unfavored driver, the unfavored driver against the favored driver, the passenger of an unfavored driver against the favored driver, the passenger of an unfavored driver against both drivers, the passenger of the favored driver against both drivers, the passenger of the favored driver against the unfavored driver, the passenger of the favored driver against the favored driver, and, finally, counterclaims so that the favored and unfavored drivers are suing each other.” Redmiles, 280 Md. at 144 , 374 A.2d at 334 (emphasis added). A claim such as that brought by Seymour, i.e., the passenger of the favored driver against the favored driver, is one of the types of suits generally arising under the boulevard law as it exists in this State. 6 ²²⁹ One of our first cases to consider the liability of a favored common earner to its passenger when the passenger is injured during transit was Sun Cab Co. v. Faulkner, 163 Md. 477 , 163 A. 194 (1932). In that case, a collision occurred at an intersection between two taxicabs, one of which had run through a red light.

Although the taxicab the plaintiff was in had the right of way, and was therefore the favored vehicle, “[tjhere was testimony tending to prove that the cab carrying the plaintiff was being driven at an unlawfully high rate of speed....” Id. at 478 , 163 A. at 194 . The passenger of the favored taxicab thereafter sued both the favored and unfavored taxicab drivers for his injuries. We stated that “the principal question is whether that high speed, if proved, could be held to have been a proximate, concurring cause of the collision.” Id. In holding that the favored driver could not be held liable to its passenger under the circumstances in Faulkner , we explained: “If negligence is found in the rate of speed at which the Sun cab was being driven, that fact alone does not, of course, answer the question of liability.

The negligence must have been the cause of the collision.... The principal cause was, obviously, the unexpected coming through of the Yellow cab, in violation of the right of way. Its doing so was not a consequence of any speed maintained by the Sun cab. Whatever other consequences the speed might have threatened, it could not be said that it threatened to cause a collision with a cab so coming through.

On the contrary, the situation created by it, if left to itself, with all its natural consequences, would have been a safe one; and it was only by the intervention of the independent agency that the collision resulted, an independent agency not set in motion or at all influenced by the driving of the Sun cab. That being true, the assumed negligence of the driver of