Jacob v. Greve

622 N.E.2d 81, 251 Ill. App. 3d 529, 190 Ill. Dec. 671
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedOctober 13, 1993
Docket2-92-0845
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 622 N.E.2d 81 (Jacob v. Greve) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jacob v. Greve, 622 N.E.2d 81, 251 Ill. App. 3d 529, 190 Ill. Dec. 671 (Ill. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

JUSTICE McLAREN

delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiff, John Jacob, appeals the order of the circuit court granting summary judgment in favor of defendant, Mayflower Tours, Inc. (Mayflower). Plaintiff raises two issues on appeal: whether the trial court erred in finding that Mayflower owed no duty to plaintiff, and whether there were questions of material fact regarding the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury. We will summarize only those facts relevant to Mayflower’s motion for summary judgment.

Plaintiff sued Mayflower and Ervin Greve, Valley Bank & Trust Company (Valley Bank), and Royal American Charter Lines, Inc. (Royal American), for injuries he sustained when Greve hit plaintiff in the head with a carry-on bag on a tour bus owned by Royal American and chartered by Mayflower for a tour of Door County, Wisconsin. Valley Bank organized the tour for members of its Crown club, customers of Valley Bank who were at least 50 years old. Both plaintiff and Greve were members of the Crown club. Plaintiff alleged that Mayflower was a common carrier and owed a high degree of care to plaintiff. Plaintiff also alleged that Mayflower, through its agents Donald Herrick, the tour director, and Robert Hoeksema, the bus driver, was negligent in: failing to seek or provide assistance to senior passengers in unloading luggage; failing to evacuate seats over which luggage was being unloaded; failing to control or regulate the removal of carry-on baggage; failing to assist or control Greve in removing his baggage from an overhead compartment; failing to rotate all passengers to their original seats before removing baggage from the overhead compartments; instituting a system of passenger seat rotation which separated passengers from their overhead luggage; and failing to organize a safe and orderly method for passengers to depart the bus.

Plaintiff settled with Royal American, and the court granted summary judgment in favor of Valley Bank. Royal American and Valley Bank were no longer parties to this action when Mayflower moved for summary judgment.

Mayflower’s motion for summary judgment first argued that Mayflower was not a common carrier. Mayflower asserted that Royal American was the carrier, and Royal American was a private, rather than a common, carrier. Mayflower next argued that Robert Hoeksema, the bus driver, was the agent of Royal American and was not an agent or employee of Mayflower. Mayflower also asserted that an exculpatory provision in its brochure relieved it of liability for plaintiff’s injuries. Finally, Mayflower argued that it had no duty to protect plaintiff from the type of injury he suffered and, even if there was a duty, the breach of that duty was not the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury.

The depositions of the bus driver, the tour director, Valley Bank’s liaison, Greve, and plaintiff and his wife establish the following undisputed facts. Valley Bank decided to organize a tour of Door County, Wisconsin. It contacted Mayflower to handle the tour. Mayflower arranged for a bus and procured the hotel accommodations. Mayflower also provided a tour director as a guide on the trip. Valley Bank had a meeting with a representative from Mayflower for the members of the Crown club who were interested in going on the Door County trip. Plaintiff’s wife attended the meeting, as did Greve, but plaintiff did not.

The tour director was in charge of the trip, and, if any of the passengers had any problems, they were to consult the tour director. The passengers were allowed one piece of luggage and a carry-on bag. The luggage was loaded underneath the bus and was handled by the bus driver and the tour director.

The tour director’s main responsibilities were checking into and out of the hotels, ensuring that the luggage stored underneath the bus was delivered to each person’s room and picked up at the room, and arranging for places to eat. On the bus, the tour director provided entertainment and general information about the tour, was available to answer questions, determined if any of the passengers had special needs and worked with the bus driver to expedite the trip. Generally, when passengers disembarked from the bus, the tour director was not on the bus. Instead he would be in the hotel checking on the rooms and getting the keys. The tour director had the duty to determine which luggage was stored under the bus and what would be carried on. There was no weight or size limitation on the carry-on bags.

Mayflower had a policy of seat rotations whereby, after each stop, the passengers were moved to a different seat to allow everyone the opportunity of having a good view out the window. The passengers were instructed not to move their carry-on luggage when they changed seats.

On the first day of the trip, the passengers changed seats three times. After the last change, plaintiff and his wife ended up in their original seats. When the bus reached the hotel, the tour director instructed the passengers on the right side of the bus to disembark first, row by row from the front. The tour director left the bus, and the passengers on the right side of the bus disembarked. Nearly all the people on the right side of the bus had left, and the few people in the back on the right side told Greve and his wife to go ahead of them. Greve and his wife then went to get their carry-on bag. Greve’s wife held the retaining wire up while Greve retrieved the bag from the overhead compartment. Greve had trouble getting the bag out, and he hit plaintiff in the head with the bag.

In his deposition, plaintiff stated that he noticed Greve was having trouble putting his carry-on bag in the overhead compartment when they boarded the bus. Plaintiff described the bag as a “Samsonite cosmetic bag.” Plaintiff also stated that the disembarking from the bus at the hotel was “very orderly.” No one offered assistance with the carry-on bags.

Donald Herrick, the tour director, stated in his deposition that he was not responsible for assisting the passengers with carry-on luggage. Any assistance he provided was on a “voluntary basis” when he saw someone who was short having trouble getting the bag up or if the rack was crowded. However, Herrick usually was not on the bus when passengers were loading or unloading the carry-on bags.

The bus driver, Robert Hoeksema, testified in his deposition that his employer, Royal American, instructed him to be available to assist passengers with carry-on bags when the Mayflower tour director requested that he do so. On the Door County trip, Herrick did not request Hoeksema to assist any of the passengers with the carry-on bags. During the deposition, Hoeksema was asked if he ever had “an experience in *** driving on these tours with an elderly passenger having a problem putting anything in or taking anything out” of the overhead compartments. Hoeksema answered that he had, but he could not recall when. He stated:

“[W]hen you put something in [the compartment], it kind of goes down. So sometimes if the person is short, they [sic] can’t see. So then I would go over there and look, because I’m taller, I can look over the top of it.
If you’re a short person or if they’re [sic] an older person, yeah, I would — just to help them [sic], to be helpful.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
622 N.E.2d 81, 251 Ill. App. 3d 529, 190 Ill. Dec. 671, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jacob-v-greve-illappct-1993.