In Boyd v. Manhattan & Bronx Surface Transit Operating Auth., the New York Court of Appeals last week determined that the jury charge -- especially the first sentence of Pattern Jury Instruction 2:164 -- might have been misconstrued as placing a higher duty of care on a defendant than is now warranted under New York tort jurisprudence. In Boyd, the plaintiff was injured on a city bus when she attempted to hold onto a strap that slipped out of its holder. At trial, the defendants asked the court to charge the jury on actual and constructive notice. The court was asked to charge that, even if the strap was defective, defendants were not negligent if they did not know, and would not by the use of reasonable care have known, of the defect.
Instead, the trial court charged the jury pursuant to PJI 2:164, which began:
A common carrier such as a bus company is required to know, and is charged with knowing the danger of its passengers from faulty maintenance of its vehicle and equipment, and is also charged with knowing how to avoid
such dangers.
The Court of Appeals observed that the charge the trial court gave was not incorrect, but the statement that "a bus company is required to know, and is charged with knowing the danger of its passengers from faulty maintenance of its vehicle and equipment" is open to misinterpretation. The Court held that in cases like Boyd courts should give an instruction on actual and constructive notice.
A read of the decision in Bethel v New York City Tr. Auth. is good background for a common carrier's duty of care in New York.
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