Last week, the New York Court of Appeals in Bingham v. New York Trans. Auth. adhered to a long-standing rule regarding the duty of care imposed on common carriers. Courts have long recognized that the duty of care imposed on a common carrier with respect to its passengers requires not only that it keep the transportation vehicle safe, but also that it maintain a safe means of ingress and egress for the use of its passengers.
In Bingham, the plaintiff fell while descending a stairway leading to a subway station, alleging that a dangerous condition caused her fall. She brought suit against the New York City Transit Authority and the Metropolitan Transit Authority, asserting, among other things, failure to keep and maintain the stairway in a proper and safe condition and failure to provide notice or
warning of the defective condition. The Transit Authority neither owned nor maintained the stairway. It requested that Supreme Court charge the jury that, unless the plaintiff
had established that the stairway was used exclusively for subway purposes, she had failed to state a cause of action and her suit should be dismissed. The Supreme Court rejected the Transit Authority's request.
In upholding the jury charge requested by the plaintiff, the Court of Appeals fashioned this rule regarding common carriers: Where a stairwell or approach is primarily used as a means of access to and egress from the common carrier, that carrier has a duty to exercise reasonable care to see that such means of approach remain in a safe condition or, where appropriate, to take such precautions or give such warnings as would protect those using such area against unforeseen danger. Whether those means of ingress or egress are used primarily for that purpose would generally be a question of fact.
The procedural posture of this particular case is interesting because this was the second time that the case was before the Court. In Bingham I, the Court observed that the Transit Authority failed to preserve the argument regarding a common carrier's duty within the context. The Bingham I decision is an excellent discussion of the preservation rule.
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