Court Opinion

ID: 9445598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:34:08.916088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:20.632272
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Mrs. Brown was 52 years old, certainly not aged or infirm, in apparent good health, able to move about alone. The time was 1:05 P.M. and the area inside and outside the plane was well lighted. There was no defect in the plane or in the ramp.
No good reason appears why the rule applicable to airplanes should not be analogous to the one often applied to trains, and which is thus stated by the Court of Civil Appeals of Texas:
“We understand the general rule in such cases to be that it is the duty of the carrier to furnish safe appliances and facilities for alighting from the train and give the passenger a reasonable time within which to alight upon arrival at his destination, and that ordinarily the carrier is not burdened with the duty of a personal assistance to a passenger in alighting from and leaving its trains. * * * These authorities also hold that in Texas there are certain well-recognized exceptions to this general rule of assistance, as, for instance, where the passenger is ‘blind, sick, aged, very young, crippled, or infirm and his condition is apparent or made known to the carrier.’ 4 R.C.L. § 654, p. 1235. In such cases it is held that the carrier is bound to render such passenger the necessary assistance in boarding or alighting from its trains. ‘On the other hand,’ states the same authority, ‘no duty to render assistance will devolve upon the carrier where the passenger is in possession of his faculties, of good health and able to move about alone, and there is nothing defective about the car platforms or steps and the place of stopping presents no special difficulties to those entering or leaving the car.’” Lattimer v. Texas & Pac. Ry. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 106 S.W.2d 727, 729.
Indeed, Mrs. Brown’s counsel do not claim that she needed assistance. As stated in their last brief: “We have never contended that Mrs. Brown required assistance while deplaning but simply that the Appellees were under a duty to warn her of the approaching steps.”
Mrs. Brown and her husband had walked up a similar ramp or set of steps about two hours earlier to board the plane in Birmingham. She knew, of course, that she had to walk down steps to dismount. I cannot see why the stewardesses owed her any duty to warn her of steps about which she already knew, or to tell her to watch her step, a precaution which a person of her age and capacity should have already learned.
She testified on cross-examination as a witness in her own behalf:
“A. There were people in front of me who kept me from seeing the steps.
“Q. That is the only reason you missed your step, isn’t it? A. Yes, sir.
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“Q. Did anybody shove you? A. No, sir.
“Q. Anybody touch you ? A. No, sir, Mr. Patterson.
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“Q. It just didn’t enter your head to stop, even though you were walking towards a door you knew was there and you knew you couldn’t see, it didn’t enter your head to stop, and you just kept going, didn’t you? A. Yes, sir, I did.”
In my opinion, the learned district judge was correct in concluding that there was not sufficient evidence to sustain a verdict for the plaintiff. See Reuter v. Eastern Air Lines, 5 Cir., 226 F.2d 443. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.