Opinion ID: 1963182
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Instructions Of The Court

Text: The appellants contend that the trial court erred in instructing the jury (a) as to the degree of care owed by the cab driver to the passenger and (b) as to the possibilities the jury could consider in arriving at a verdict. The contention as to the degree of care is based on the claim that the passenger, having paid the fare, gotten out of the cab into the street and closed the door, was no longer a passenger but a pedestrian standing in the street between intersections. Again, the appellants ignore the further fact that the passenger, in the process of alighting from the cab, had not yet (because her raincoat was caught in the door) completely freed herself from the cab. In this state, taxicabs are common carriers and drivers thereof not only owe a duty to be watchful and alert at all times, but are bound to exercise the highest degree of care consistent with the nature of their undertaking and this includes an obligation to stop a sufficient length of time to enable a passenger to alight in safety. United Railway Co. v. Weir, 102 Md. 286, 62 Atl. 588 (1905); Brooks v. Sun Cab Co., 208 Md. 236, 117 A.2d 554 (1955); Retkowsky v. Baltimore Transit Co., 222 Md. 433, 160 A.2d 791 (1960). The instruction as to the degree of care was proper. The contention as to the factual possibilities the jury could consider is likewise without merit. Apparently the contention is based on the claim that the original charge did not adequately present an aspect of the defense to the effect that the chain of events was started by the plaintiff herself in attempting to close the door with her elbow and on the claim that the supplemental charge, in that it referred to three possibilities, was as vague and indefinite as the original charge. As a result of the meeting of counsel and the trial judge in chambers for the purpose of considering exceptions to the original charge, the judge returned to the court room and gave an additional charge  You will recall that I gave you instructions concerning three possibilities [since two of the possibilities [1] and [2] used different language to express the same principle of law, there were actually only two possibilities in the original charge  see p. 9 of this opinion] that you may find from the evidence; the first possibility being that you may find from the evidence that the defendant cab driver closed the door and thereby caught the lady's coat in the door.   . The second possibility [this was stated as the third [3] possibility in the original charge  see p. 9 of this opinion] is that the lady herself closed the door and caught her own coat in the door, between the door and the body of the cab,   . Now, there is the third possibility    that the lady had completely freed herself from the cab and was not attached to it in any way by her clothing or otherwise, and that she was standing somewhere near the cab when the cab drove off, and [as to this] you may find from the evidence that while the cab was driving off, her clothing then for the first time got caught on some part of the taxicab and caused her to be thrown to the ground. Under those circumstances,   , if you find that the accident occurred in that fashion,   , then you are instructed that under those circumstances the lady's nearness to the cab and allowing her coat to be caught, as a matter of law, makes her contributorily negligent, and that the driver driving off after the lady had been completely separated from the cab was not negligent, so that if you find the third possibility to be the way that the accident happened, your verdict must be in favor of the defendant and against the plaintiff. It is apparent that the original charge to the jury as supplemented by the additional charge was neither indefinite nor vague. Moreover, the claim that the original charge in which, according to the appellants, the possibilities apportionmentwise were twice as favorable to the appellees as to the appellants cannot be said of the supplemental charge for it is apparent that the instruction as a whole is more favorable to the defendants than was the original charge. Even if it is assumed that the court somewhere along the line should have taken into consideration the fact that the passenger had closed the cab door with her elbow, the appellants took no exception to the neglect of the court to do so. So long as the law is fairly covered by the instructions, as was the case here, we will not disturb them. Casey v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, 217 Md. 595, 143 A.2d 627 (1953). And see Fisher v. Baltimore Transit Co., 184 Md. 399, 41 A.2d 297 (1945).