Livingston v. Greyhound Lines Inc.

208 A.3d 1122

Manaja LIVINGSTON, Darren Shin, Rosaura Sanchez, Hector Amado Sanchez, Rosa Maria Tapia, Semen Babadzhanov and Tatiana Liakh

v.GREYHOUND LINES INC., Sabrina Anderson, FirstGroup America, C.A.V. Enterprises, LLC, Akos Gubica and Karolly Gubica

Appeal of: Greyhound Lines, Inc. and Sabrina Anderson

Faithlee Brown and Joseph Hoang and Kenneth Rothweiler, Esq., Co-Administrators of the Estate of Son Thi Thanh Hoang, Deceased and Hiren Patel, Gustav Frederiksen, Brandon Osborn, Elora Lencoski, Barbara Yerger-Doyle, William Koomson, Fnu Salfulah, Keith Pressman, Charles Reid, Michael Katchpaw, Suraj Balakrishnan and Ahmed Aljahmi

v.Greyhound Lines, Inc., and Sabrina Anderson, FirstGroup America, C.A.V. Enterprises, LLC, Akos Gubica and Karolly Gubica

Appeal of: Greyhound Lines, Inc., and Sabrina Anderson

No. 318 EDA 2017

No. 570 EDA 2017

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued February 13, 2019

Filed April 29, 2019

Christine J. Marshall, Troy, MI, and Conor T. Fitzpatrick, Detroit, MI, for appellants. Louis Hockman, Philadelphia, for Gubica and C.A.V., appellees.

Jonathan Ostroff, Plymouth Meeting, and Louis C. Ricciardi, Plymouth Meeting for Livingston, appellee.

BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., KUNSELMAN, J., and COLINS^* , J.

OPINION BY COLINS, J.:

These matters are consolidated appeals filed by appellants, Greyhound Lines, Inc. and its bus driver Sabrina Anderson (collectively, the Greyhound defendants), from judgments entered by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County on a jury verdict in two consolidated multi-plaintiff personal injury cases. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

The consolidated actions at issue here arose out of a rear-end motor vehicle accident where a Greyhound bus carrying over 40 passengers collided with a tractor-trailer truck. The accident occurred on Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania near Mile Marker 204 at approximately 1:30 a.m. on October 9, 2013, while the bus was traveling an overnight route from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio. Both actions are suits by bus passengers injured in the accident against the Greyhound defendants. Seven passengers were plaintiffs in the Livingston action; 15 passengers and the estate of a deceased passenger were plaintiffs in the Brown action. The Greyhound defendants joined the truck driver, Akos Gubica, and the owner of the truck, C.A.V. Enterprise, LLC, (collectively, the truck defendants) as additional defendants.

A jury trial was held in June and July 2016 on the individual claims of four passengers, plaintiff Tatiana Liakh in the Livingston action and plaintiffs Faithlee Brown, Elora Lencoski, and Brandon Osborn in the Brown action. The trial court ordered that the liability verdict at this trial would apply to all other plaintiffs in the two actions.

Plaintiffs and the truck defendants contended at trial that the accident was caused by the bus driver falling asleep at the wheel. Plaintiffs asserted that Greyhound was both vicariously liable for the bus driver's conduct and also independently liable for the accident because its procedures to prevent fatigued driving were inadequate. The Greyhound defendants contended that the accident was caused by the truck driver driving on the interstate at a speed of only 16 miles per hour without activating his flashing hazard lights, and disputed plaintiffs' claims that its safety procedures were inadequate.

The data recorder on the bus showed that it was traveling at approximately 67 miles per hour at the time of the accident. The bus driver testified that the last thing that she remembered before the accident was that her right leg went numb and would not move off the accelerator and that she reached down with her right arm and blacked out. N.T. Trial, 6/14/16 (A.M.), at 77-81. Several passengers and another driver on the road testified that shortly before the accident, the bus was swerving in and out of its lane and went onto the rumble strips. N.T. Trial, 6/2/16 (P.M.), at 90-99; N.T. Trial, 6/3/16 (A.M.), at 28-31, 62-67; N.T. Trial, 6/3/16 (P.M.), at 33-36. Two passengers testified that during the trip, the bus driver looked like she was falling asleep. N.T. Trial, 6/3/16 (P.M.), at 33-34; N.T. Trial, 6/9/16 (A.M.), at 8-13.

The evidence was undisputed that the weather at the time of the accident was clear with no visibility problems. The Pennsylvania State Police accident reconstructionist who investigated the accident, Corporal Steven Schmit, testified that there was no physical evidence that the bus driver put on the brakes or took any evasive action before the impact. N.T. Trial, 6/30/16 (A.M.), at 29, 39-40; N.T. Trial, 6/30/16 (P.M.), at 63. In addition, a passenger who was awake and saw the truck through the front window of the bus before the collision testified that the bus did not move to avoid the truck. N.T. Trial, 6/3/16 (A.M.), at 31-33. Plaintiffs introduced expert testimony that the bus driver fell into a micro-sleep, a brief episode of involuntarily falling asleep, in the moments before the accident. N.T. Trial, 6/9/16 (A.M.), at 41-44, 66-70, 72-73; N.T. Trial, 6/9/16 (P.M.), at 91-93. No evidence was introduced by any party that anything other than falling asleep caused the bus driver to black out before the collision.

Corporal Schmit opined that the truck was traveling at approximately 16 miles per hour, a speed at which it was required to have its hazard lights on. The testimony of the truck driver and plaintiffs' and the truck defendants' experts placed the truck driver's speed in the range of 40-45 miles per hour, speeds at which hazard lights were not required. The evidence was undisputed that the truck driver did not have his hazard lights on at the time of the accident. Plaintiffs' human factors expert testified that even if the truck was traveling at 16 miles per hour without its hazard lights on, a reasonably attentive driver in the bus driver's position could have avoided the accident and that hazard lights would have no effect if the bus driver was asleep. N.T. Trial, 6/7/16 (A.M.), at 50-52, 69; N.T. Trial, 6/7/16 (P.M.), at 64. The Greyhound defendants' human factors expert testified that a reasonably attentive driver would not have had sufficient reaction time to avoid the collision if the truck was traveling at 16 miles per hour with no flashing hazard lights, but admitted that a driver who was unconscious would not react. N.T. Trial, 6/29/16 (P.M.), at 57, 62-84, 137.

The jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiffs and against the Greyhound defendants, finding that both Greyhound and its bus driver were negligent and that their negligence caused plaintiffs' injuries. The jury assessed 55% of the liability to the bus driver and 45% of the liability to Greyhound on plaintiffs' independent liability claim. The jury found that the truck defendants were negligent, but that their negligence was not a cause of plaintiffs' injuries. The jury also found both Greyhound and its bus driver liable for punitive damages. The jury awarded each plaintiff $ 500,000 in punitive damages and awarded plaintiffs Liakh, Brown, Lencoski, and Osborn compensatory damages of $ 75,000, $ 125,000, $ 2.5 million, and $ 350,000, respectively.

The Greyhound defendants filed post-trial motions seeking a new trial on all issues on 12 grounds and seeking judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) on plaintiffs' punitive damages claims and plaintiffs' independent liability claim against Greyhound. The trial court denied the post-trial motions and entered judgments on the verdict for plaintiff Liakh, who was the only remaining plaintiff in Livingston after settlements with other plaintiffs, and for plaintiffs Brown, Lencoski, and Osborn. Because there remained one other plaintiff in Brown , the trial court entered an order making an express determination that the judgment for plaintiffs Brown, Lencoski, and Osborn was a final order under Pa.R.A.P. 341(c). The Greyhound defendants timely appealed both judgments.

In this Court, the Greyhound defendants raise the following six issues for our review: 1) whether the trial court erred in excluding an alleged admission by the truck driver that he was intoxicated; 2) whether the trial court erred in permitting plaintiffs and the truck defendants to argue that an internal Greyhound company rule, Rule G-40, constituted the legal standard of care; 3) whether the trial court erred in failing to grant a mistrial after plaintiffs' counsel asked a Greyhound witness whether Greyhound had set aside over $ 81 million to pay claims; 4) whether the trial court erred in ruling that Corporal Schmit could not testify concerning the cause of the accident; 5) whether the bus driver and Greyhound were entitled to JNOV on punitive damages; and 6) whether Greyhound was entitled to JNOV on plaintiffs' independent liability claim against it. Appellants' Brief at 3-4.

We conclude that the trial court did not commit reversible error with respect to its exclusion of the truck driver admission, its denial of JNOV on punitive damages, or its denial of a mistrial, and that the claim of error with respect to Corporal Schmit's testimony was waived.¹ In light of these rulings and Greyhound's vicarious liability for both the compensatory and punitive damages awards against the bus driver, the remaining two arguments, concerning Greyhound's internal rule and Greyhound's independent liability, cannot affect the validity or amount of the judgments, and we therefore do not rule on those issues.

Exclusion of the Truck Driver Admission

The Greyhound defendants argue that the trial court erred in excluding the testimony of a witness, Matthew Welch, concerning a conversation with the truck driver when the truck driver was detained in a State Police holding cell after the accident for a drug influence evaluation. Our review of this ruling is limited to determining whether the trial court abused its discretion. Vetter v. Miller , 157 A.3d 943, 949 (Pa. Super. 2017) ; Rohe v. Vinson , 158 A.3d 88, 95 (Pa....