Opinion
2005-3374.
Decided November 24, 2008.
Timothy J. Demore, Esq., Bottar Leone PLLC, Attorneys for Plaintiffs, Syracuse, NY.
Rory A. McMahon, Esq., Mary Anne Doherty, Esq., Corporation Counsel, Attorneys for City Defendants, Syracuse, NY.
Louis J. Tripoli, Esq., Mackenzie Hughes LLP Attorneys for CNYRTA and CENTRO Defendants, Syracuse, NY.
Kevin P. Ryan, Esq., Harris Beach PLLC, Attorneys for Defendant DeJuanna Rush One Park Place, Syracuse, NY.
I. Procedural Background
This action concerns personal injuries sustained by Amanda Cominsky in a pedestrian and motor vehicle accident that took place on December 17, 2004. The Syracuse City School District and the Board of Education for the Syracuse City School District (collectively "the District"), and the City of Syracuse ("the City") seek summary judgment dismissing plaintiffs' complaint and all cross-claims. Defendants Central New York Regional Transportation Authority and Centro, Inc. (collectively "Centro") also seek summary judgment. Plaintiffs do not oppose Centro's motion for summary judgment. However, the District opposes Centro's summary judgment motion and defendant DeJuanna Rush opposes the motions of both Centro and the District. There is no opposition to the City's contention that it is not a proper party.
II. Facts
In a complaint dated June 17, 2005, plaintiffs Stephen and Margaret Cominsky, individually and as the parents of minor Amanda Cominsky, sued defendants in eight causes of action. Amanda Cominsky sustained injuries on December 17, 2004 when she was struck by a car while crossing South Salina Street near Maplewood Avenue in Syracuse. Cominsky had disembarked from a Centro bus and crossed behind the bus onto South Salina Street. As the bus pulled away from the curb, Cominsky attempted to run across Salina Street. Defendant DeJuanna Rush drove the car that struck Cominsky.
At the time of the accident, Cominsky was a sophomore at Bishop Ludden High School, a private Catholic school in Syracuse. The District contracted with Centro to transport students living in the city to schools such as Bishop Ludden. The bus from which Cominsky disembarked was not used exclusively to transport pupils. The bus was "open to the public," although at the time of the accident only students were on the bus. The Centro bus was not a yellow school bus, and it was not equipped with the safety features required for school buses pursuant to section 375 of New York Vehicle and Traffic Law.
Plaintiffs sued defendants for negligence, violation of section 375 of the New York Vehicle and Traffic Law and section 3635 of the New York Education Law, and for loss of services. The District asserted a cross-claim against Centro for common law indemnification.
Rush asserted cross-claims against Centro and the District for indemnification and apportionment.
III. Discussion
A. Summary judgment motion of the District
The District argues that it is entitled to summary judgment because at the time of the accident it neither had nor breached a duty to plaintiffs and the acts of Cominsky intervened to break any causal chain. Specifically, the District contends that it owed no duty of care to the plaintiffs because Cominsky was out of the District's custody and control and the District did not release her into an affirmatively dangerous situation. The District maintains that Cominsky's injuries were caused by her decision to exit the bus before her designated bus stop, her failure to heed instructions she was given about bus safety, and her decision to run behind the bus into a busy street.
Plaintiffs argue that the District failed to provide adequate safety measures to transport Cominsky to and from school. They contend that the District is liable because it released Cominsky into a hazardous setting of its own making. According to plaintiffs, the District was negligent because it contracted with Centro without justification, failed to transport Cominsky in a yellow school bus, and failed to establish safe bus stops. They argue the accident was foreseeable. Plaintiffs also complain that the District's conduct violated section 3635 of the New York Education Law and Section 375 of the New York Vehicle and Traffic Law.
Section 3635 of the Education Law does not impose a duty on a school district to bus children. As explained by the Court of Appeals,
[i]t specifies only that, where school busing is provided, it must be made available to all eligible children equally.' This conditional mandate has been interpreted to mean that all children who live the same distance from the school must be offered busing services; it does not refer to any obligation to consider the relative hazards in the paths of different children.
Pratt v. Robinson, 39 NY2d 554, 559 (1976). Nothing in section 3635 requires a school district to furnish transportation to children directly to or from their homes. Thus, the Court of Appeals has held that section 3635 "furnishes no basis upon which to posit a duty on the part of [a] school district to bus [a student] closer to her home solely in order to avoid a hazard in the nature of a heavily traveled crossway." Id.
Likewise, the common law custodial duty of a school district towards its students does not impose a requirement on the district to provide transportation to a point which "will prevent [students from] encountering traffic hazards." Id. at 563. "A school district is not an insurer of the safety of its students." Norton v. Canandaigua City Sch. Dist., 208 AD2d 282, 288 (4th Dep't 1995). Instead, a school district's duty is limited to "the same degree of care toward [its students] as a reasonably prudent parent would exercise under similar circumstances." Id. at 285. Moreover, "[t]he duty of a school district to its students is strictly limited by time and space' and exists only so long as [the students are] in its care and custody. . . .'" Harker v. Rochester City Sch. Dist., 241 AD2d 937, 938 (4th Dep't 1997). Thus, where a "school district has engaged an independent contractor to provide busing, the school district cannot be held liable based on physical custody once the children board the contractor's bus." Sigmond v. Liberty Lines Transit, Inc., 261 AD2d 385, 387 (2d Dep't 1999). See also Chainani v. Board of Educ. of New York, 87 NY2d 370, 379 (1995) (affirming summary judgment to school for injury sustained by plaintiff after alighting from a bus owned and driven by an independent contractor); Wisoff v. County of Westchester, 296 AD2d 402, 402-03 (2d Dep't 2002) (same). This general limitation on liability will not apply, however, where the school district releases the student into circumstances which pose a foreseeable risk of harm. "Consequently, if the school and/or school district were aware of an unreasonable risk posed by the conduct or nonfeasance of the bus company and failed to take steps to minimize the risk despite being in the best position to do so, liability may ensue." David "XX" v. St. Catherine's Ctr. for Children, 267 AD2d 813, 815 (3d Dep't 1999).
As a matter of law, the District did not breach a duty to plaintiffs by contracting with Centro to bus some of its students. First, the economic wisdom of the District's decision is irrelevant to analysis of the District's duty to plaintiffs where, as here, plaintiffs do not allege that Centro was not a reputable common carrier. Second, the District was not obligated to provide transportation to its students on yellow school buses. See, e.g., Wisoff, 296 AD2d at 402-03 (finding no liability to District for providing transportation for its students on public buses); Sigmond, 261 AD2d at 387 (same).
Section 375(20) of the New York Vehicle and Traffic Law does not compel a different result. That statute provides in pertinent part:
Every omnibus . . . used exclusively to transport pupils . . . shall be equipped
. . .
(a) [with two] colored flashing signal lamps . . . including at least one flashing red signal lamp on the front thereof and at least one flashing red signal lamp on the rear thereof. . . . The driver of every such vehicle shall keep such red signal lamps lighted whenever passengers are being received or discharged.
. . .
(b)(1) In addition to such signal lamps, two signs shall be conspicuously displayed on the exterior of every such omnibus designating it as a school omnibus by the use of the words "SCHOOL BUS" which shall be painted or otherwise inscribed thereon in black letters.
NY Veh. Traf. Law § 375(20) (McKinney 2008). Thus, the safety provisions of section 375(20) of the Vehicle and Traffic Law do not apply where, as here, the evidence establishes that the bus from which Cominsky alighted was part of a fleet used for public transportation and, on the date of the accident, the bus was "open to the public." Contrary to plaintiffs' argument, the fact that there only were students on the bus at the time of the accident does not equate to a finding that the bus was "used exclusively to transport pupils."
Third, at the start of each school year, the District provided safety instructions for students to use when boarding and exiting Centro buses. These instructions included a warning that vehicles are not required to stop when a Centro bus is boarding or discharging passengers and directions to students to wait until the bus is at least one-half block away before attempting to cross the street. Cominsky admitted that she received these instructions.
Fourth, Cominsky was afforded a safe place to alight from the bus. The bus traveled north and south on Salina Street. Thus, there were bus stops on both the east and west sides of the street. Cominsky admitted that if she had stayed on the bus it would have looped around so she would not have had to cross Salina Street. Instead, she opted to get off the bus early. In any event, "[i]t is well settled that a school district's duty to provide safe bus stops and school transportation does not require that it prevent a child from encountering traffic hazards while traveling between her house and the bus stop." Hanley v. East Moriches Union Free Sch. Dist. II, 275 AD2d 389, 390 (2d Dep't 2000).
Even if plaintiffs had raised an issue of fact as to the negligence of the District in contracting with Centro and designating plaintiff's bus stop, any negligence was not a proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries. Rather, Cominsky's decision to cut short her bus ride and her spontaneous decision to run across Salina Street without waiting for the bus to move a sufficient distance to provide a clear path of vision for her and the drivers on the road superceded any alleged negligence of the District. Cf. Hanley, 275 AD2d at 390 (plaintiff's independent decision to run into the street superseded any negligence by the District in designating a bus stop). The accident in question was "extraordinary under the circumstances, not foreseeable in the normal course of events, [and] independent of or far removed from the [District's] conduct,' thereby breaking any causal nexus linking the District to the accident." Davis v. Marzo, 2008 NY App. Div. LEXIS 7241 (October 3, 2008) (citations omitted).
B. Summary judgment motion of Centro
Centro argues that it is entitled to summary judgment because at the time of the accident it neither had nor breached a duty to plaintiff and the acts of Cominsky intervened to break any causal chain. A common carrier has a duty to stop in a reasonably safe place for passengers to disembark. Mooney v. Niagara Frontier Transit Metro Sys., Inc., 125 AD2d 997, 998 (4th Dep't 1986). Thus, a bus carrier "may be held liable for injuries suffered by passengers forced to disembark at an unsafe place." Id. If the area is safe, however, the duty of the bus company to the passenger terminates as soon as the passenger alights safely from the bus. Id. See also Rodriguez v. Manhattan Bronx Surface Transit Operating Auth., 117 AD2d 541, 543 (1st Dep't 1986); Wisoff, 296 AD2d at 402; Sigmond, 261 AD2d at 387. Here, Centro's duty to plaintiffs terminated when it deposited Cominsky into the safety of a designated bus stop. Cominsky's independent decision to shorten her bus ride and her subsequent decision to run into the road directly behind the bus as it was pulling away from the curb "preclude a finding that the action of [Centro] was a proximate cause of the accident." Mooney, 125 AD2d at 998 (quotation marks and citation omitted).
IV. Conclusion
Based on the foregoing, the court grants summary judgment dismissing plaintiffs' complaint and all cross-claims against the City of Syracuse, the Syracuse City School District, the Board of Education of the Syracuse City School District, Central New York Regional Transportation Authority and CNY Centro, Inc. Counsel for Centro is directed to submit an order on 15 days' notice in accordance with this decision. The Order should include decretal paragraphs denying, as moot, defendant Rush's motion to compel plaintiff to produce authorizations and the City defendants' motion to bifurcate the trial of liability from the trial of damages.