Recent Judgments« TAXI-DRIVER’S DUTY TO PASSENGER

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28958, 28 July 1959, Page 20

Recent Judgments« TAXI-DRIVER’S DUTY TO PASSENGER

Woman Injured After Alighting

BAXTER v. HALLIDAY

IBy a Legal Correspondent) 0 (Before the Court of Appeal, at Wellington) This judgment shows the duty of a taxi-driver towards a passenger who is alighting, or has alighted, from his taxi-cab. It concerns a jury’s verdict awarding damages to an elderly woman whose coat was caught in a door of the taxi-cab and who was injured when the driver drove off without considering her safety.

One evening, at about half-past ten four elderly women who had been at a card evening at their club engaged a taxi to drive them from the club to their respective homes. One of them, the first to reach her home, alighted. Unfortunately, her coat had become caught in the door when it was closed. The taxi-driver moved off and she was thrown to the ground and injured. It was not contradicted that the taxi moved off the instant the passenger had alighted. The driver had not moved from his seat, and he left the passenger to open the door and alight unaided. The door was shut by the combined efforts of the alighted passenger and one of her companions in the taxi-cab. Jury’s Verdict The injured passenger (here called “the respondent”) claimed damages from the owner of the taxi-cab. Her action was heard before a Judge and jury. The jury found that the driver of the taxi was negligent in a manner contributing to the accident, and awarded the respondent £7O 18s 6d as special damages, and £950 as general damages. They also held that the respondent herself was negligent, and found that, on account of her share in responsibility for the accident, her damages should be reduced by 6 per cent. The owner of the taxi-cab, on those findings, moved for judgment or, alternatively for a nonsuit or a new trial. Mr Justice Haslam dismissed the motion, and gave judgment in favour of the injured passenger for the amount awarded her by the jury. The owner of the taxicab appealed.

Driver’s Duty The judgment of the Court of Appeal was delivered by Mr Justice North. The Court began its judgment by saying that the law places the obligation upon carriers of persons to use all due, proper and reasonable care, and the care required is of a high degree. Counsel for the taxi-cab owner had contended that in the absence of any evidence that it was customary for drivers of taxi-cabs to leave their seats and assist their passengers to alight at the end of the journey, the jury could not properly have found the driver of the appellant’s taxi-cab negligent in that respect, since the respondent had made no suggestion to him that she was in any special need of assistance. The Court agreed that there was no evidence of such a practice, but they did not agree that the respondent was obliged to call evidence of the kind suggested. It may well be. they said, that a driver is not negligent in remaining in his seat and not assisting his passenger to alight. That may be merely a matter of good manners. But, if the driver chooses to remain in his seat and does not think it is necessary to assist an elderly passenger to alight at least he must take reasonable care to see that she is quite safe before he moves off. Driver Negligent The uncontradicted evidence before the jury showed that the driver did nothing to see that the respondent was safe before he went on to take the other passengers to their homes. He moved off immediately, while the respondent must still have been very close to the door in which her coat was caught. In the Court’s opinion, the taxidriver in this case should have foreseen that coats can easily become caught up in a door or in some projecting part of his vehicle; and he should have waited till he was reasonably sure that his passenger was clear of his cab before he set it in motion. Counsel for the owner of the taxi-cab had laid considerable stress on the fact that the respondent was on the footpath when she was injured. That, the Court said, put her in a position of safety from the risk of injury

by other users of the highway: but the place where she had alighted afforded her no protection from the kind of accident in which she became involved. The Court held that there was ample evidence justifying the view taken by the jury that in the circumstances the driver was negligent. They added that the fact that the immediate cause of the mishap was the action of the respondent and one of the other passengers in shutting the door did not relieve the driver from responsibility: on him lay the duty of seeing that his passenger was safely out of the cab. Percentage of Blame

Finally, the appellant’s counsel had asked for a new trial on the ground that the jury had acted unreasonably in fixing the respondent’s share in the responsibility for the accident at 6 per cent. The Court, on this point, said that the percentage of blame was certainly rather low, but, in its opinion, it could not possibly be said that the verdict of the jury in this respect was unreasonable. Strong grounds must be shown before an apportionment of damages made by a jury would be disturbed. Here, it was not unreasonable for the jury to conclude that it was an easy matter for an elderly woman to alight from a taxi-cab unaided in a way that enabled her coat to be caught in a closing door; and the jury could reasonably have concluded that substantially the blame for the accident was with the driver.

The appeal was accordingly dismissed, and the respondent held her judgment for £959 13s 4d. ir. accordance with the jury’s verdict.

Counsel: For the appellant taxiowner, J. C. White; for the injured passenger respondent, Pope. Solicitors: For the taxi-owner. Young, Bennett, Virtue, and White (Wellington); for the injured passenger, Perry, Wylie, and Pope (Wellington).