Matthews v. Greyhound Lines, Inc.

882 F. Supp. 146, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4285, 1995 WL 140182
CourtDistrict Court, D. Arizona
DecidedMarch 24, 1995
DocketNo. CY 93-663 TUC JMR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 882 F. Supp. 146 (Matthews v. Greyhound Lines, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Matthews v. Greyhound Lines, Inc., 882 F. Supp. 146, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4285, 1995 WL 140182 (D. Ariz. 1995).

Opinion

ORDER

ROLL, District Judge.

This order supersedes the previous conditional order issued in this matter.

Pending before the Court is plaintiffs motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability and defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the issue of punitive damages. For the reasons set’forth below, the Court GRANTS plaintiffs motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability and DENIES defendant Greyhound’s motion for summary judgment on the issue of punitive damages,

LIABILITY

Facts

On September 10, 1993, defendant Roger White was operating a Greyhound Lines, Inc. (“Greyhound”) bus en route from Los Ange-les to Phoenix. At approximately 7:10 a.m., while traveling on Interstate 10 near Buckeye, Arizona, at an approximate speed of 65 miles per hour, the bus drifted completely off the right side of the road. When the driver sharply corrected to the left, the bus trav-elled across both lanes and partially left the paved two-lane highway on the left side into the center median. When the driver again steered the bus back onto the highway it overturned on its left side.

Plaintiff Edward Walter Matthews was one of thirty-nine passengers on the bus at the time of this occurrence. Plaintiff has brought this action against defendants Greyhound and Roger White. Plaintiff has submitted a number of affidavits and deposition transcripts, including the transcript of passenger Petra Rivera Josaino, who was sitting in the right front passenger seat and saw Mr. White close his eyes immediately before the accident. Defendants proffer Mr. White’s internal accident report, in which he claims, that he drifted off the road due to a flash of bright sun in his eyes. The accident report prepared by the Arizona Department of Public Safety indicates that the roadway was dry, straight, in good condition, and the sky was clear. The bus itself showed no apparent defects.

Standard for summary judgment

A party is entitled to summary judgment if the party can establish that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that based on the facts, the movant is entitled to prevail as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). “A ‘genuine issue’ is one which requires a trial, i.e., one which a reasonable trier of fact could decide in favor of the party adverse to summary judgment on the available evidentiary record.” United Bank of Arizona v. Allyn, 167 Ariz. 191, 195, 805 P.2d [148]*1481012, 1016 (App.1991) (citing Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986)). Ordinarily, summary judgment is not appropriate in negligence actions because breach of the duty of reasonable care and proximate cause are fact questions for the jury. Markowitz v. Arizona Parks Bd., 146 Ariz. 352, 706 P.2d 364 (1985). Nevertheless, summary judgment is appropriate where all reasonable people must draw the same conclusion. Talbot v. Schroeder, 13 Ariz.App. 230, 475 P.2d 520 (1970).

Discussion

Defendants maintain that the mere occurrence of an accident does not raise even an inference of negligence. First Nat’l Bank of Arizona v. Dupree, 136 Ariz. 296, 665 P.2d 1018 (App.1983).1

Here, however, the documentation submitted tends to establish much more than the mere occurrence of an accident. A driver operating a bus free of defects on a roadway without any apparent flaws, drove off the highway and, in attempting to correct the course of the bus, caused the bus to flip over on its side. Two explanations are tendered, one by plaintiff and one by the defendants. Plaintiff suggests that the bus driver fell asleep. Defendants contend that the driver was blinded by the sun while the driver was operating the bus eastbound at sunrise.

The otherwise unexplained departure of a vehicle from a roadway resulting in a single-car accident has been held to raise a presumption of negligence requiring the driver to tender a reasonable explanation to refute that presumption. Sugg v. Sanderson, 515 So.2d 909 (Miss.1987).

In Winter v. Scherman, 57 Haw. 279, 554 P.2d 1137 (1976), the Hawaii Supreme Court held that in a single-car accident without eyewitnesses where a van failed to negotiate a fairly gentle curve to the right and, instead, crossed over the centerline and paralleled the road on the opposite side’s shoulder for 225 feet before impacting a utility pole, killing both occupants, the trial judge correctly granted plaintiffs motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict because the evidence inescapably compelled an inference of negligence.

In Beck v. Kessler, 235 Cal.App.2d 331, 45 Cal.Rptr. 237 (1965), the court held that the trial court properly granted a directed verdict on the issue of liability where the evidence showed that defendant struck plaintiffs’ cab from behind, the cab was stopped at a red traffic light in the center of three lanes of traffic, no other traffic was in the vicinity, weather did not contribute to the accident and no obstacles obstructed defendant’s vision. See also, Vredeveld v. Clark, 244 Neb. 46, 504 N.W.2d 292 (1993); Andre v. Pomeroy, 35 N.Y.2d 361, 320 N.E.2d 853, 362 N.Y.S.2d 131 (1974).

Here, defendants point to no other party’s negligence as a possible causal agent, apparently maintaining that no one was negligent. An accident occurring without tortious conduct on anybody’s part has been termed an “unavoidable accident.” Restatement (Second) of the Law of Torts § 8. No reasonable jury could find that the accident at issue here was unavoidable. In order to so find, the jury would be required to conclude that the daily event of the sun’s rising relieved the defendant of his duty under Arizona law to stay on the roadway. See AR.S. § 28-721(A).

The only genuine issue of fact is whether the driver drove the bus off the roadway because the bus driver was asleep or because the bus driver was blinded by that morning’s sunrise. Under either scenario, the bus driver was negligent. Therefore, this dispute is not material and plaintiffs motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability is GRANTED.

PUNITIVE DAMAGES

Defendant Greyhound seeks summary [149]*149judgment on the issue of punitive damages.2

Unfortunately, the incident of September 10, 1993, was not the first mishap in which driver Roger White was involved.

During his employment with Greyhound and prior to this accident, Mr. White was involved in an accident which some passengers blamed on his falling asleep at the wheel.

Before being employed by Greyhound, Mr. White was employed by SuperShuttle.

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Bluebook (online)
882 F. Supp. 146, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4285, 1995 WL 140182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/matthews-v-greyhound-lines-inc-azd-1995.