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C.A. Revives Action by Girl Hurt in Car Crash After School Bus Dropped Her at Wrong Stop
Opinion Says Summary Judgment Was Wrongly Issued in Favor of Transportation Company Based on Proximate Cause
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held that summary judgment was improperly granted to a defendant bus company that dropped off two schoolchildren at the wrong stop, despite their protests, on the basis that the ensuing car crash that injured the girls on their way home from that location was too attenuated from the error for liability to attach.
In an unpublished opinion, filed Wednesday and authored by Justice Truc T. Do, the court held that the trial judge wrongly determined that proximate cause barred the action, saying that the plaintiff had shown sufficient evidence tying the vehicle collision to the company’s negligence in dropping her off at the wrong location.
The incident took place on Feb. 5, 2019, when a bus operated by First Student Inc. (“FSI”) dropped plaintiff Aaliyah Jones at a stop more than a mile from her home in Barstow. Another student, Skylin Jackson, was also dropped at the location, despite both girls objecting that the driver was wrong in thinking that the area represented where they typically disembarked.
Aaliyah was unable to secure a ride home from her grandmother and accepted an offer by Warren Jackson, Skylin’s father, to drive her home. After they left the location, Jackson “locked” onto the wheel, started shaking, and began foaming at the mouth.
Still traveling at a high rate of speed, the car ran through a red light and collided with another vehicle. Jackson died following the crash, and both girls were seriously injured.
On Nov. 25, 2019, Aaliyah, by and through her guardian ad litem, filed a complaint against FSI, asserting a single cause of action for negligence.
Opposition Evidence
After FSI filed a motion for summary judgment, Aaliyah submitted opposition evidence, including testimony establishing that it was against company policy to drop students anywhere but at their designated stops. Barstow Unified School District Superintendent Jeff Malan also testified that “school buses are designed for school safety” and averred that students in a private car are “at a greater risk for injury than they would [be] if they were in a bus.”
He also agreed with a statement, in an instructor’s guide for training bus drivers, characterizing parents who transport their own children to school as being “often in a hurry” and as frequently “not…driving cautiously.”
Aaliyah argued that FSI had not met its burden at summary judgment to prove that the collision was unforeseeable. She argued that the evidence submitted in opposition to the motion created triable issues on proximate causation and whether the crash was a superseding event.
San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Corey Lee declined to rule on FSI’s evidentiary objections to Aaliyah’s evidence and concluded that the injuries sustained lacked the sufficient “close” connection with FSI’s negligence to warrant liability. Lee reasoned that harm that “would be closely connected with FSI’s actions” would include abduction or suffering heat stroke or hypothermia, none of which was alleged in the lawsuit.
Lee said that policy considerations weighed against burdening FSI with liability because causation was too attenuated, noting Jackson’s “purported[] seizure” and that it is “generally not foreseeable” that an accident will occur “on any given street on any particular occasion.”
Tuesday’s opinion reverses the judgment and remands the matter for further proceedings. Justice Jose S. Castillo joined in the opinion, and Justice Terry B. O’Rourke wrote separately to “note” an error in one of the appellant’s arguments. In a footnote, Do pointed out that “[n]either party has challenged the court’s evidentiary rulings.”
Proximate Cause
Do noted that “proximate cause…is an element of a cause of action for negligence” and requires that a finding that the defendant’s lack of care factually produced the harm alleged and that public policy considerations do not weigh against the imposition of liability.
Under the public policy analysis, courts consider the degree of connection between the conduct and the injury to determine whether it is too attenuated to fairly hold the defendant culpable, Do said, adding that intervening conduct also may “cut[] off liability” if it is determined that the superseding event, and the results it caused, were not foreseeable.
Addressing Lee’s rulings, Do remarked:
“The court did not squarely rule on whether FSI adequately proved its first fact, namely that Warren suffered a seizure and this was a cause of the collision. But the court relied in part on what it referred to as Warren’s ‘purported[]’ seizure in determining there was an insufficiently close connection between Aaliyah’s injuries and FSI’s actions to support proximate causation.”
That, Aaliyah argued on appeal, was an error because there was not sufficient evidence to establish that Jackson had a seizure and, even if there was, the medical event is not relevant to the proximate cause analysis. Do remarked:
“Because we agree with her second claim of error, we need not and do not address the first.”
She explained that courts are to look to the “general character of the event or harm” in analyzing proximate cause rather than the precise way it came about. Applying that analysis, she reasoned:
“Here, the general character of the event or harm is a collision in the private vehicle of an adult called on to shuttle a child unexpectedly ejected at the wrong school bus stop. The theory that Warren suffered a seizure goes to the precise nature or manner in which this particular collision occurred, which is not dispositive….”
Triable Issue of Fact
Turning to Aaliyah’s opposition evidence, the jurist concluded that it was “sufficient to create a triable issue of fact on proximate causation, particularly when her evidence is liberally construed and when all reasonable inferences are drawn in her favor,” saying:
“Aaliyah’s evidence was sufficient to defeat summary judgment because a jury could properly conclude on the basis of her evidence that the category of negligent conduct at issue—ejecting a child at the wrong school bus stop—is sufficiently likely to result in the kind of harm she experienced—injuries from a private vehicle collision. Accordingly, the foreseeability of harm remained a question for the jury, making it improper to grant summary judgment on proximate causation.”
She also found fault with Lee’s assessment that Jackson’s purported seizure rendered the accident unforeseeable, commenting that “the fact that Warren may have suffered a seizure is not dispositive and the court should have disregarded this fact entirely” and “[i]t is…reasonable to place the burden…on FSI given that its bus driver is the adult in custody of the child and is in the best position to avoid the risks.”
As to whether the accident or Jackson’s driving amounted to superseding causes, Do wrote:
“We have already concluded that Aaliyah’s opposition evidence was sufficient to create a triable issue of fact on the foreseeability of her harm such that proximate causation could not be decided by the trial court as a matter of law. This necessarily means her evidence was sufficient to defeat FSI’s effort to prove superseding cause, because FSI’s burden to establish that defense was even heavier than its burden to demonstrate the absence of proximate cause.”
O’Rourke, in his one-paragraph concurrence, said:
“I concur but wish to note appellant is mistaken in assuming that a ‘seizure’ refers only to a specific illness or neurological event requiring proof by expert testimony.”
He continued:
“The Oxford English Dictionary Online defines ‘seizure’ as ‘[a] sudden attack of illness.’…It appears to me that Skylin J.’s testimony is sufficient by itself to establish Warren J. had a sudden attack of illness or a medical emergency immediately before the collision.”
The case is Aaliyah J. v. First Student Inc., D085177.
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