Opinion ID: 1968884
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 418 Confining Negligence Issue to Closing of Door.

Text: The trial court submitted two forms of general verdict to the jury. Verdict No. 1, in pertinent part, provided, We, the jury, find for the plaintiffs and assess damages as follows. Verdict No. 2, which was the one returned by the jury, read, We, the jury, find for the defendant, Henry Holz. In instructing the jury, the trial court charged in part as follows: If you are satisfied to a reasonable certainty, by the greater weight of the credible evidence, that Henry Holz closed the door upon plaintiff's thumb, then he failed to exercise that degree of care imposed upon him as a cab operator, and caused plaintiff's injuries; and you will select and answer verdict No. 1. If, however, you are not satisfied to that degree of certainty, by the proper weight of the evidence, that Henry Holz closed the door upon the plaintiff's thumb, then you will select and answer verdict No. 2. This instruction clearly limited the negligence issue as to whether Holz closed the door on Mrs. Fleischman's thumb. Plaintiffs contend that the evidence would permit a jury finding of negligence against Holz even though he did not so close the door. In support of this contention plaintiffs' brief states that a duty was imposed on Holz to observe the exit of the passenger and render such assistance . . . as the circumstances might require. In order to pass on this issue of whether the trial court erred in confining too narrowly the negligence issue submitted, it becomes necessary to review the pertinent evidence adduced at the trial. The taxicab was a 1958 Ford four-door sedan. Mrs. Fleischman was the only passenger and sat on the right side of the rear seat. Holz stopped the cab at the curb in front of the house which was Mrs. Fleischman's point of destination. The street was level at this point.  Her testimony as to what there transpired is as follows: She handed Holz a dollar bill which he placed on the front seat beside him and he gave her a fifty-cent piece in change. She then opened the right rear door, which hinges on the center post. She had the strap of her handbag slung over her left forearm, the bag itself being eight to 10 inches below her forearm; and an apron was folded over her right arm. She got out of the cab and had both feet on the curbing. She then felt a tug on her purse, and her arm was pulled back. She further testified that Holz slammed the door on her thumb. She admitted, however, that she did not see him close the door, but was sure he did so. When she last looked at Holz he was looking in her direction and had his right arm extended over the front seat toward the door. When the door closed on her thumb the purse was free of the door and outside the cab. In her adverse examination before trial Mrs. Fleischman testified: When I got out of the cab myAs I walked out my purse seemed to be as if it were caught, and I gave an extra tug, and in that moment the door was slammed on my thumb. Holz's version of what happened is as follows: When he stopped the cab he kept his right foot on the brake. He watched Mrs. Fleischman until he was reasonably sure she was outside of the cab. He was looking in her general direction. He did not know that Mrs. Fleischman had caught her handbag on the door and she did not notify him that this had occurred. He did not close the door nor did he see her do so. Holz wears shirts with a 32-inch sleeve length. Measurements made by Holz and his attorney disclosed that if Holz sat behind the wheel and extended his right arm toward the right rear door his fingertips were 16 inches from the crank on the door for raising and lowering the glass, and 26 inches from the door handle.  Plaintiffs produced a witness of comparable build to Holz who testified that by moving his buttocks nine to nine and one-half inches to the right from his position of sitting behind the wheel of the taxicab he could reach far enough to grab the window knob of the right rear door, apparently referring to the window crank. Plaintiffs contend that the evidence would support a finding of causal negligence against Holz in these respects: (1) In failing to personally attend to opening and closing the door for Mrs. Fleischman; or (2) in failing to see that her handbag caught on the door and either warning her of danger, or shifting his position to the right so that he could have grabbed the window crank and prevented the door slamming on Mrs. Fleischman's thumb. The rule as to when a taxicab driver is required to assist a passenger boarding or alighting is well stated in the annotation in 75 A. L. R. (2d) 988, 998, as follows: . . . the duty of a taxicab driver to assist a passenger in boarding or alighting from the conveyance may arise when the surrounding circumstances are such as to suggest to him the necessity of assistance, and that the obligation of the carrier in this respect is dependent largely upon the nature of the vehicle, the facility with which a passenger may enter or leave the conveyance, and similar circumstances. King v. Vets Cab, Inc. (1956), 179 Kan. 379, 383, 295 Pac. (2d) 605, 56 A. L. R. (2d) 1249, and Hardy v. Ingram (1962), 257 N. C. 473, 475, 126 S. E. (2d) 55, state this rule in substantially the same terms as above. See also Frederick v. Yellow Cab Co. of Philadelphia (3d Cir. 1952), 200 Fed. (2d) 483; Somerset v. Stinson (Ohio App. 1955), 141 N. E. (2d) 781; and Schickel v. Yellow Cab Co. (1952), 369 Pa. 356, 85 Atl. (2d) 138. These cases hold that a taxicab driver has no duty to assist a passenger to alight in the absence of special circumstances or a request for  assistance. The Massachusetts and North Carolina courts in recent cases found no negligence as a matter of law where taxicab drivers failed to open doors or otherwise assist lady passengers in alighting. Langton v. Mason (Mass. 1962), 186 N. E. (2d) 711, and Hardy v. Ingram, supra . In a discussion between the trial judge and counsel after the close of the testimony, with respect to the form of verdict to be submitted and the instructions to be given the jury, the judge stated: As an operator of a public transportation vehicle he would be held to the highest degree of care consistent with the operation of cabs. However, I am going to have to tell the jury that he had no obligation with respect to seeing her or helping her out of the car, or to open or close the door for her. We agree with this conclusion of the trial court. The apron which Mrs. Fleischman carried was not such an encumbrance as to require Holz to open and close the cab door or to assist her in alighting. As previously noted, there is also a question of whether a jury issue was presented as to whether Holz should have seen that Mrs. Fleischman's handbag caught on the door, and in failing to warn her of danger or in grabbing the door so as to prevent it closing on her thumb. At the time Mrs. Fleischman caught her handbag on the door and felt a tug she was already outside of the cab. This apparently is what caused her to know that the handbag had caught on something. She testified, however, that at the moment she felt the tug the door slammed on her thumb. Because the jury found by their verdict that Holz did not slam the door on her thumb, plaintiffs now argue that there is an inference that the catching of the handbag on the inside door handle and latch is what caused the door to close. If that is so, there was no time in which Holz could have voiced an effective warning, assuming it was his duty to have seen that  the handbag had caught on the door. Seated as he was back of the wheel, he could not have reached the rear right door in time to have prevented its closing without first shifting his buttocks at least nine inches to the right. By that time the door would have closed on Mrs. Fleischman's thumb. We find no error in the trial court's confining the issue of Holz's negligence as to whether he closed the door on Mrs. Fleischman's thumb. The cases relied upon by plaintiffs are readily distinguishable: In North v. Williams (Okla. 1961), 366 Pac. (2d) 406, both the passenger and driver testified that the driver was the one who closed the door; in Beck v. Wade (1959), 100 Ga. App. 79, 110 S. E. (2d) 43, there was a defective door, the passenger was burdened with schoolbooks, and the drivers had orders from the employer to open and close doors themselves and not let the passengers do it; in Allen v. Miles (Ky. 1954), 265 S. W. (2d) 445, under passenger's version of evidence there was a reasonable inference that the door was closed by the driver or by a sudden movement of the cab; and in Dickson v. Yellow Cab Co. (La. App. 1952), 61 So. (2d) 230, involving a seventy-five-year-old passenger, the front door slammed on passenger's hand as a result of the slant of the hill on which the cab was stopped.