next case in our call this morning this case number one zero eight eight eight eight mariana cry when a person should call the transit authority this case is agenda number eight today's call a directed verdict in this case as the evidence showed that the c t a was acting as a common carrier at the time of the occurrence and the plaintiff was actually in the act the specific act of alighting from the train at the time of the occurrence therefore under longstanding eleanore law the c t a or the plaintiff a duty to provide a safe place to light consistent with the practical operation of its business as a comma carrier the trial court properly submitted that narrow issue to the jury and the jury returned a verdict finding that the c t a breached their duty to provide a safe place to write in reversing the trial court's decision and the jury's  i believe the evidence showed that b common carriers duty to provide a safe place to write should have included an obligation to either avoid or remedy known dangerous conditions existing in the specific area of the lightman and this should have been true even if that happened to be naturally occurring ice as long as the common carrier had sufficient notice of the condition and proceeded to the jury those cases are all factually distinguishable from from this case and none of those cases overrule the wasserman case which i think is that is the closest case i put in this and that would bring me socially to my second point and that is even if you find that there are no set of facts at all ever in which the common carriers duty to provide a safe place to light includes an obligation to avoid or remedy a known naturally i see condition in a specific area of alignment the jury's verdict should still stand because the evidence showed that the c t a could have fulfilled that duty to provide a safe place to alight without engaging in any snow and ice removal therefore the duty that was owed the duty to provide a safe place to alight cannot be voided by the application of the natural accumulation rule if you so choose to apply it to  and so this was premised entirely on the safe place to god the jury's verdict was premised entirely on the failure to provide a safe place to like crack what was the its will be evidence was th on the train platform there was an unsafe portion and that was the area in which the plaintiff was made to alight and there was a safe portion on the fire form as well and there was no evidence presented as to why the six each a simply could not have let not in all circumstances if a common carrier is in the specific back of providing a plaintiff a safe place to alight and they are aware of a known dangerous condition in that specific area for several days before the  incident i submit that bed duty should include avoiding a remedy in that condition otherwise the highest duty of care is rendered essentially meaningless in the face of the national humiliation role but if the plaintiff had alighted from the train and she had reached a place of safety so it had she gotten off the train and she walked ten or fifteen feet or she had gone down the stairs and she was walking through the station lobby let's say and then she slipped and fell on a national humiliation of ice and snow a paul student at the time and she would take that train three times a day and she would always get on a train in the same place so she was standing on the platform when the train pulled then as which train pulled in the doors opened the plaintiff stepped off the train very close in proximity to wish this eyewitness miss majors was waiting for the train and she saw the plane a slip and fall i need she device which she testified was see through  so big that there was no way the plaintiff could have avoided it could have stepped around it if she had seen it and that it it had existed in the same manner on that platform for three straight days her having been in that specific place nine time t s whale made its personnel testified that it was their job to continuously go on those platforms and specifically for those three three straight days and whatever they encountered sand excuse me whenever they encountered snow or ice on the platform they would remove it completely and then spread sand on the platform from one end to the other after they did that there would be no procedure for removing the sand so the absence of the sand coupled with the ice in that area  move ice and snow during an ongoing storm from all of its streets and sidewalks and that's not what we're dealing with here and i think the case thought that has developed over the years has shown a second rationale for the natural accumulation rule and that is when it's snowing and when it's icy out it's open obvious everybody knows turn on the t v see the weather they walk outside the conditions are coming down that wasn't the case in this case as the trial point is a trial court pointed out the evidence in this case was not that there was general icy conditions throughout the city in fact the plaited who was seventy four years old at the time of the occurrence walked several blocks from her apartment building got onto the train p c t s redlight train at howard street walked up those stairs got on no problem she gets to surety and road and for whatever reason the back end of that i would be a platform which happened to be near the lakefront  was covered with a sheet of ice which had been there for three straight days you would see through she couldn't have stepped around it even if she had seen it according to the eyewitness testimony because it was that large an area she takes one step in signed to the specific task of making sure that the platform was safe and specifically say for ice and snow they were already paying these people to do this i mean specific base multiple people levenson this case that made the meet the condition which the injury occurred on and reasonably once i'm reasonably dangerous was the fact that they didn't do the job they didn't do the job for those three days so far better to say that if you of reasonable care to take reasonable letters when there is a known danger in an area of the lightman will bankrupt the system it's completely disingenuous and not supported by the record in this case c t a was acting as a comma carrier and there is no dispute that the plaintiff was in the specific act of lighting from the train infected c t the reports which were admitted into evidence say the plaintiff was alighting from the train she literally had taken one step off with one foot she's coming off of the other foot she slips and falls and she breaks her like under that set of facts but i don't think there's a dispute but this each day only to need to provide a safe place to light consistent with the proximate practical mode of its conveyance in this case after recognizing the duty people of course says but we recognize the duty but we're not going to let the jury decide whether or not it was breached recent case that applies to rule in a common carrier situation number one is distinguishable in that case the plaintiff had alighted from the aircraft and she had walked to seventy five yards across the tarmac and she had walked onto a and therefore that was a fact question for judy whether or not they should have brought her off somewhere else that's what the trial court ruled ruled here he followed that i believe he followed the washroom in case and said it in compliance with offer that when there's evidence that they could head drop her off somewhere else without engaging in snow and ice from a war they could have dropped her off into another place that was safe well then they should do just that  badly one instance in which you know is not consistent with the proper mode of operation another instance might maybe where a bus driver or a cab driver let somebody off onto a sheet of ice pick head driver that bus driver had no reason inconsistent with the practical mode of operation but in this case we have the evidence that it was there for a sufficient amount of time that they had actual or constructive notice of it and they did nothing at all i mean it a simple warning over the p a system could have complied with their duty to provide a safe place to lay his case now it's true that under the current case all there's no obligation to warn of a natural accumulation but in this case we're not just all maybe the jury would have called it was all they reasonably could have done but under this case the evidence was the c t a simply did nothing they didn't try to remedy the condition even though they had people assigned to do that they didn't try to avoid the condition even though better certainly possible all they had to do was pull the train under the platform under the canopy which winston was doing on the platform and there was a safe place where she could write it down where they didn't try to warn of the commission they didn't do care in providing its passengers with a safe place to ride doesn't have any obligation whatsoever to run of the known dangerous conditions that exist in this specific area of the light me even if those the middle of a speeding intersection and then let passengers hit by i'm sorry i hit it over the seat i was a passenger to right in an intersection in the middle of an intersection and then the passenger steps off the bus and the passengers hit by speeding motorists it can be said that the teacher you know didn't comply with your duty to provide a safe place to alight but still have no duty with regards to be underlying condition that was dangerous in that case speeding motorists so there are t asian rule can only shield someone from her failure to remove snow and ice if they could have complied with the duty in this case by doing something else by providing her different place were right th  but that doesn't mean that but it doesn't necessarily mean that just because any injury occurs on ice and snow that it completely is out of the defendant from any other  as good a job as mr hanson did including the decision in this case it's up on appeal there are five illinois appellate court decisions that have directly addressed directly addressed the conflict the alleged conflict or the interaction between high studio of care of a common carrier and the common carriers safe place to alight with the natural accumulation rule that you speak up just a bit oh i'm sorry none of those five cases has there been a descent no illinois appellate court justice in any of those cases or in any other case has advocated the position that the plaintiff is taking in this case and we urge the court today to affirm that all property owners in the state are covered by the natural cumulation rule and that the common carriers high studios care does not void that protection and when the only danger the only danger that the passenger faces is the natural accumulation we agree that there is there traditionally has been hired to have care applied to common carriers in the state the third argument we raised in operate was that but that's a historical anachronism that should be corrected but notwithstanding that there certainly is and has been applied that higher duty of care and it's because of the nature of the danger the nature of the danger is whether it's raining it's you know it's sleek it's weather conditions that are by their very nature unpredictable it's you have no duty to protect members of the public from weather conditions because by their nature they are completely unpredictable and in addition imposing that duty would overwhelming would overwhelm the two rules together you're using kind of different vocabulary safe and unsafe versus natural accumulation or unnatural cumulation what the evidence showed was that there was a canopy s very small canopy on this platform that was less than twenty five percent of the length of the platform and that there was no one tenth of an inch covering of ice that had fallen from the scott it was a natural cumulation under that canopy there was absolutely no evidence in the record although the train operator was called to  testify that the train operator had any ability at all to safely provide a place to alight under that canopy for an eight car l train ok she was in the fifth car  eight car train there's absolutely no evidence that the train operator even has the ability to electronically open one two three car doors other car doors the trial court judge surmised that it was possible to make an announcement in the train and direct people within the train cars crossing over various chorused to get to the place under the canopy to a life but again there's no evidence that that was even possible and there's certainly no evidence that that would have been  natural accumulations of snow and ice plaintiff's counsel for the first time in the p l o i and also in the opening brief in this case makes the argument the factual argument that there was no ongoing storm yet certainly we can see that the facts  should be seen in the light most favorable to plaintiff and all reasonable and what's a should be granted that's just simply a spin and an unfounded spin on these facts plaintiff's main witness in this trial patricia natures took the stand and testified she's the only person who two years and nine months after the incident had a specific memory of what the weather conditions were right on the two days prior to this fall and what the platform conditions were like two days before this fall and  testimony was that it had been raining and sleeting and there was falling slush from the sky for all three days that when she walked from her apartment to the sheraton l stop she walked on sidewalks that slush and snow on them and ice over the tops of her boots but when she got up to the platform there was no slush there was no snow there was nothing on the platforms except a very thin one tenth of an inch layer of ice there was an ongoing storm it had continued to that morning and clearly if the accumulations on the snow on the streets and sidewalks platform and that on the morning of this incident the ongoing storm continued she testified that it was raining and that one play to foul she took off her coat to hold it over the plaintiff to prevent her from getting wet another witness testified that it was snowing and that the woman the other witness opened up her umbrella to protect the plaintiff from the downfall of the snow mr woods you're argument now for the last several minutes is all based on facts evidence that was presented facts i'm contending simply don't support that even if we take the facts not in the light most favorable to plaintiff but in our view it is a duty case in our view it's not necessarily that there was an improper instruction because the step where the duty should've been decided was at the directed verdict stage but getting to justice garments question this jury was told absolutely nothing about anybody's duty to with respect to the natural cumulation of snow and ice the only duty that the jury was instructed on have concluded and really because of the evidence in this case the only unsafety the only danger allegedly that the plaintiff faced on alighting where she lived was the existence of natural accumulated snow and ice and there simply was no direction no instruction at all on that show and it won't play to the saying is that the judge took that issue away from the case but that doesn't mean that the jury knew that or knew that the basis for why that or she was taking away the definition of what the duty  was making it's like making it so to a light and more specifically whether the existence of a natural accumulation of snow and ice made don't say if there was a legal duty on the c t a with respect to protecting the plaintiff from that ice removing that ice or anything else with the evidence of the field that assume the duty that was never an issue in this case plaintiff has never argued it at the trial level  know well the evidence is there was a single person who was assigned to three locations on that day on an eight hour shift and depending on how bad the snow was would move at certain times to certain stations and would get there platform yet when she walked to the platform that day she was walking through an inch of accumulation on the streets and sidewalks but there's no evidence that he got there one way or another but if the duty is going to be imposed on the c t a then it's not going to be sufficient for the c provide a single person for two or three locations it's going to be required that the c t a provide a crew at each station and as soon as natural cumulation starts falling the sea change needs to address it because if somebody falls in a natural  that kind of a claim again the five appellate court decisions in this case that have been issued all you need and honestly have agreed that imposing that kind of a burden on a common carrier like the chicago transit authority would be an overwhelming burden and that there would be no justification for that common carriers are entitled just as any other property owners are to the protections of the natural accumulation w this operation if there's no if there's no my understanding and again i haven't gone deeply into these cases because it simply hasn't been raised by the plaintiff and of us never asserted that argument in this litigation at any point  my reading of those cases is that they arise and typically arise in the context of landlord tenant and wasn't a part of the duty was it a part of the tenancy contract that the landlord was going to take care of or you've got an owner who third parties in somebody to clear the parking lot and they don't do a good job that's very different from what we have in this case and again kind of as not argued down and what we have here is just the straight application of the natural communication rule and the corollary is to those rules are that there is not a duty to remove snow and ice there is not a duty to remove naturally occurring ice that exists beneath the snow and the basis for liability for it to find a property owner is if they cause or that was not challenged on appeal to the only appellate court it's not as far as i know not challenged in this court although i heard something that made you believe that possibly that was no part of plaintiff's argument but that was decided that struck there was an objection to the instruction was that there was not an objection to that instruction there was an objection to that instruction being provided as the only duty instruction without instruction by without telling the me back up i'm not sure at that point in in the litigation which was an hour or two before the jury was instructed because this whole notion of what the duty was what the property was was all sort of being debated and decided as the evidence was coming in as the witnesses were testifying the directed verdict issue was really raise for the first time after plaintiff's case it was only one more witness  and in the context of trying to debate and figure out what those issues were going to be the trial court judge took the snow and ice duty the duty to remove snow and ice out of the case but the was not instructed about any duty that the c t a had or did not have with respect to snow and ice on that platform and when the sole danger when the sole issue is that that plane to face is falling o slipping on the snow in ice it's a problem with the jury instructions is the problem to say all the jury decided that issue already if the jury was never instructed on the duty it was really the trial court's failure to properly get that duty analysis right that is preservation the medical expert took the stand and really testified very clearly that the climate issue here the ice issue here had nothing to do with her injury her injury occurred because she had osteopenia in her lower leg  she was an elderly woman who had a history of smoking and cardiac issues and when she took a step off of this train according to her medical treater her foot planted it didn't slip on the ice and no one says that they saw plaintiff slip on the ice there's something here stater some i was told this kind of thing but even patricia majors who witnessed it untradeable players council just said she didn't testify i saw her take a step slip and fall she said i saw her step off court address an issue that has not been addressed in the court for many decades which is the whole notion of the common carrier owes a high studious care as opposed to an ordinary care under all the circumstances as opposed to an instruction of care that the greater the danger to which a passenger might be exposed the greater the duty of a common carrier but it is not always and forever in every case the highest duty of care if there are no further questions i'll conclude by asking the court to affirm the decision of the appellate court which reversed the trial verdict and find its favor and we ask the court to hold the common carriers are protected by the natural cumulation rule and do not owe duties to passengers to provide a safe place to live if the sole danger that the passenger faces is a natural accumulation of snow ice or water  you i just want to i think touch upon an issue that was brought up this teaching never asked for any type of special instruction they never asked for any type of limiting instruction or special a truck instruction they asked for a directed leaders conditions which were known for three days but my second position is even if you don't believe that the jury verdict must still be affirmed because after the application of the natural humiliation has no obligation to remove natural humiliations of ice and snow in your initial argument you talk about public policy i mean if we were to rule on the second issue the duty to provide safe a white should have been granted but there was no reason that page could not have just went around the same place actually no reason whatsoever getting back to the policy arguments by i just point out th higher duty of care to the common carrier office again one does not have to trump the other a common carrier can still have a duty to provide a safe place to life which it should that's limited to the consistent me it becomes a question of fact for the jury to consider whether or not it really was complied with in this case that's exactly what happened the trial court allowed bad bad bad very narrow issue to go to the jury and the jury found already got the protections of the natural cumulation law my first argument is that this shouldn't have gotten that but even if you find that they should have gotten those protections then the second argument is yes i still think the british should be affirmed because the issue that was submitted to the jury and decided upon the jury was that narrow very narrow issue of whether or not a c t provided the duty to provide a safe place to light and the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff on that issue  many common carriers higher duty of care under this specific set of facts which i submit he was a very unique set of facts but it's not often that you have eyewitness testimony that somebody saw a condition for three days straight in coun  engaging in a natural removing in snow and ice from the room and therefore the jury question existed on that issue which the jury miss casey answered