Opinion ID: 2338374
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: MTA's Duty of Care Under Tall v. Baltimore Steam Packet Co.[3]

Text: 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 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. See also Ragonese v. Hilferty, 231 Md. 520, 526, 191 A.2d 422, 426 (1963); Retkowsky v. Baltimore Transit Co., 222 Md. 433, 440, 160 A.2d 791, 794-95 (1960); Smith v. Baltimore Transit Co., 214 Md. 560, 568, 136 A.2d 386, 391 (1957); Tall, 90 Md. at 253, 44 A. at 1008; Baltimore & Ohio Railroad v. State, 60 Md. 449, 462 (1883); Baltimore & Ohio Railroad v. Worthington, 21 Md. 275, 283 (1864); Stockton v. Frey, 4 Gill 406, 422-23 (Md.1846). This high degree of care differs from the standard of care that we require of carriers in situations where a passenger suffered injuries as a result of a fellow passenger's assault. Tall, at 253-54, 44 A. at 1008. In such situations, this Court has held that a carrier has a duty to take affirmative action to prevent a foreseeable attack by one passenger upon another. Pugh v. Washington Railway & Electric Co., 138 Md. 226, 113 A. 732 (1921); Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. v. Rudy, 118 Md. 42, 57, 84 A. 241, 247 (1912); United Railways & Electric Co. v. State, 93 Md. 619, 49 A. 923 (1901); Tall, at 253-54, 44 A. at 1008-09; Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. v. Barger, 80 Md. 23, 30-31, 30 A. 560, 561 (1894). In Tall, this Court discussed the distinctions between the common carrier's two different duties: [A common carrier's heightened duty of care], though the measure of the carrier's duty as between him and his passenger in respect to the acts or omissions to of the carrier and his servants towards the passenger, is not the standard by which his liability to the passenger is to be gauged or determined when intervening acts of fellow-passengers or strangers directly cause the injury sustained whilst the relation of passenger and carrier is subsisting. Such an injury, due in no way to defects in the means of transportation or to the method of transporting, or to an actual trespass by an employee whilst the relation of passenger continues and involving, therefore, no issues of negligence concerning the duty to provide safe appliances and competent and careful servants to operate them, but arising wholly from the independent misconduct of a third party, furnishes a ground of action against the carrier only when the carrier, or his servants, could have prevented the injury but failed to interfere to avert it. The duty of the carrier in such instances is, consequently, relative and contingent, not absolute and unconditional. It springs from a condition, not of the carrier's but of a third party's creation, coupled with a knowledge by the carrier's servants that the condition exists, and with time enough intervening between the acquisition of the knowledge and the infliction of the injury to enable the servants of the carrier to protect the passenger from the third party's misconduct. (Emphasis in original.) 90 Md. at 253, 44 A. at 1008. We continued by explaining the basis for a carrier's liability when one passenger assaults another: The negligence for which, in such cases, the carrier is responsible is not the tort of the fellow-passenger or the stranger, but it is the negligent omission of the carrier's servants to prevent the tort from being committed. The failure or omission to prevent the commission of the tort, to be a negligent failure or omission, must be a failure or an omission to do something which could have been done by the servant; and, therefore, there is involved the essential ingredient that the servant had knowledge, or with proper care could have had knowledge, that the tort was imminent, and that he had that knowledge, or had the opportunity to acquire it, sufficiently long in advance of its infliction to have prevented it with the force at his command. If this were not so, the mere tort of a fellow-passenger or a stranger would constitute of itself, the negligence of the carrier, and the carrier would be held answerable for wrongful acts of a third party, though the carrier's servants were, without fault, ignorant of the third party's purpose to make an assault and were, consequently, unprepared to avert it. Such a rule would make the carrier an absolute insurer of the safety of the passenger against the wrongful conduct of third persons, though, as between the carrier and the passenger in ordinary cases, the carrier's liability is made to depend on his or his servant's negligence. Id. at 253-54, 44 A. at 1008-09. Tall has established clearly that common carriers owe a duty to take affirmative action to protect their passengers from an assault by a third party if certain conditions are present. The existence of the duty depends, first, on whether the carrier, in the exercise of proper care, knew or should have known that an assault was imminent. Even if the carrier had the requisite knowledge, its duty to take protective action does not arise unless that duty arose well enough in advance of the assault to have prevented it with the force in its command. Although whether one party owes a duty of care to another is ordinarily a legal question for the court to decide, the existence of MTA's duty in this case is predicated on its asserted similarity (or not) to the factual conditions prerequisite described in Tall. Because the jury is the appropriate body to find the facts, we need only decide if there is a dispute of material facts as to whether these conditions existed in the present case. Cf. Walpert, Smullian & Blumenthal, P.A. v. Katz, 361 Md. 645, 693, 762 A.2d 582, 608 (2000) (recognizing that the existence of a legal duty may depend on a preliminary factual determination, namely whether contractual privity existed, which should be decided by the trier of fact). Mr. Todd presented such a factual dispute regarding MTA's duty if a jury could reasonably find: (1) that MTA knew or should have known that the attack on Mr. Todd was imminent, and (2) that it knew or should have known of the imminent harm with adequate time and available resources to have prevented or mitigated it. See Beatty v. Trailmaster Prods., Inc., 330 Md. 726, 738-39, 625 A.2d 1005, 1011 (1993) (requiring evidence upon which the jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff to create a material dispute of fact).
Several early Maryland cases provide guidance for determining the existence of the first factual threshold, whether an attack by a passenger upon another was foreseeable. In Tall, we affirmed a judgment in favor of a steamboat company, holding that it did not owe a duty to protect its passenger from an unexpected gunshot injury. 90 Md. at 256, 44 A. at 1009. The facts indicated that the passenger's gunshot wound was the unfortunate result of a quarrel between two other passengers in the boat's smoking room. Id. at 251, 44 A. at 1008. The quarreling passengers exchanged unpleasant words while the captain of the boat looked on. Id. Just as the quarrel turned physical, the captain sprung forward ... and intervened but could not prevent one of the quarrelers from firing a gun at the other. Id. The bullet missed its target and hit the plaintiff, who was standing some distance away. Id. We concluded that, as a matter of law, the steamboat captain could not have foreseen that a quarrel between two passengers would result in a gunshot injury to a third party who was not at all involved in the argument. Id. at 256, 44 A. at 1009. This Court again considered the duty of a common carrier to protect its passenger from foreseeable assault in United Railways, 93 Md. at 623-24, 49 A. at 923. We held in that case that the plaintiff had presented sufficient evidence to create a jury question concerning whether the carrier should have foreseen the attack on the injured passenger and, thus, owed him a duty to take preventive measures. Id. at 629, 49 A. at 926. Before the attack, the assailant had been forcibly ejected from the street railway car by the defendant's agents because he was drunk and acting violently. Id. at 627, 49 A. at 925. The violent passenger immediately boarded the car again, however. Id. Although the motorman and conductor saw the passenger board the car for the second time, they failed to take action to remove him before he attacked again. Id. The railway company argued that it could not have foreseen that the plaintiff's decedent, in particular, would be attacked by the violent passenger. Id. at 627-28, 49 A. at 925. We emphasized, though, that a common carrier's duty extends to the protection of all passengers in its care, and if the defendant had knowledge that  some one would (or might) be injured, it had a duty to protect all passengers from that danger. Id. at 628, 49 A. at 925. The railway company, we concluded, had a duty to take action to prevent the attack because the assailant's known condition ... rendered it very probable and likely that he would attack someone else. Id. In Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 118 Md. at 65, 84 A. at 250, this Court held that an injured passenger had created a jury question as to whether the defendant railroad company should have known that an assault upon a passenger was imminent. The injured passenger presented evidence that, for an extended period prior to the his injury, the railroad company knew that other passengers on its train were drinking, boisterous, swearing, and throwing glass bottles out of the train window. Id. at 59-60, 84 A. at 248. The injured passenger testified that one of the thrown bottles shattered on a passing train, and a shard from it rebounded into the defendant's train, causing the injury. Id. Based on this evidence, we concluded that it was proper for the jury to decide whether the defendant should have known that the disorderly passengers' conduct placed other passengers in danger. Id. at 65, 84 A. at 250. In Pugh v. Washington Railway & Electric Co., 138 Md. 226, 234-36, 113 A. 732, 736 (1921), we held as a matter of law that the defendant railroad company could not have foreseen an assault upon its passenger. The plaintiff was seated beside her sister on the defendant's passenger train. Id. at 227-28, 113 A. at 733. Immediately across from and facing the plaintiff and her sister were the assailant and a deputy sheriff. Id. When the assailant reached out and grabbed the plaintiff's knee, the plaintiff immediately told the him to stop. Id. at 234-35, 113 A. at 735. Although the train conductor stood nearby, the plaintiff did not bring the incident to his or the deputy sheriff's attention. Id. The assailant then grabbed the plaintiff's knee a second time, causing the injury for which the railroad company was later sued. Id. at 229, 113 A. at 733-34. We held that the plaintiff had presented no evidence to show that the railroad company knew or should have known that the assault was imminent because there was nothing in the conduct of the [assailant] to excite the apprehension of even those sitting beside him [on the train] that he contemplated such an assault. Id. at 234, 113 A. at 735. In all of these cases, we have recognized that the assailant's prior conduct was significant in our determination of whether a future assault was foreseeable. That is, the carrier knew or should have known that an attack on its passenger was foreseeable when the assailant, prior to the attack, had behaved recklessly, violently, or disorderly. We hold that, in the instant case, Mr. Todd presented sufficient evidence upon which a jury could reasonably find that the attack on Mr. Todd was foreseeable. Like the assailants in United Railways and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the juveniles who boarded the bus were disruptive and unruly. The juveniles irritated and cursed other passengers. Their manners were such that they caused other passengers to complain to Mr. Rolle. These actions were even more foreboding because the group of juveniles all behaving this way numbered fifteen to twenty. The size of the group and the nature of their conduct, without more, could have alerted Mr. Rolle to the likelihood of an altercation. Therefore, we find that the facts before us create a jury question as to whether MTA should have known, in the exercise of reasonable care, that an assault on its passenger was imminent.
Turning now to the second inquiry under the Tall rule, we must determine whether a jury could find that the driver knew of the attack far enough in advance to have prevented it with the force in his command. Two of the cases we discussed above instruct us as to the sufficiency of the evidence under this inquiry. In United Railways, we held that the carrier knew of the assailant's dangerous propensities with adequate time before the passenger's attack to have prevented it. 93 Md. at 628, 49 A. at 925. The carrier's agents, who had already demonstrated their ability to eject the violent assailant, noticed the assailant again board the street railway car. Id. at 627, 49 A. at 925. Thereafter, the street railway car made at least two stops, but no effort was made to put the assailant off the car. Id. We held that this evidence was sufficient for a jury to find that the carrier had the time and ability to have prevented the victim's injury. Id. at 629, 49 A. at 925. Similarly, in Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, we held that the jury could find that the carrier knew of the reckless activity on the train with enough time to have prevented it. 118 Md. at 65-67, 84 A. at 250. The facts presented showed that the assailant's reckless conduct began and continued throughout a train ride from West Virginia to Washington D.C. Id. at 58-59, 84 A. at 247. On the return trip to West Virginia, the assailants resumed the disorderly behavior for a period of thirty-five to forty minutes and in the presence of one of the carrier's agents. Id. at 59-62, 84 A. at 248-49. This evidence, we decided, provided a jury with a basis for finding that the carrier had ample time protect the plaintiff after it knew of the reckless conduct. Id. at 64-65, 84 A. at 250. The facts in the instant case also could persuade a jury to conclude reasonably that the MTA bus driver had sufficient time within which to take action to remove the threat of the assault. The bus driver knew of the juveniles' behavior when they boarded the bus and began to irritate and curse other passengers. Like in United Railways and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the attack did not commence suddenly after the carrier learned of the danger to his passengers. Rather, the unruly behavior of the juveniles continued for five minutes before Mr. Todd was struck in the back of the head. Furthermore, Mr. Rolle arguably possessed within his command the necessary force to have prevented the attack, whether it involved requesting the juveniles to behave, pushing the panic button or stopping the bus. In our judgment, a jury could reasonably conclude that a five minute period provided the bus driver with enough time to take some affirmative action to prevent the assault. Consequently, Mr. Todd met both criteria for creating a jury question over the existence of MTA's duty under Tall. The evidence showed that MTA had knowledge that the assault upon Mr. Todd was imminent. It further demonstrated that this knowledge existed far enough in advance of the assault for MTA to have taken preventative action.