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Mastriano v. Blyer9/14/2001
eashed and apparent, and the cab driver released the passenger into those forces-for example allowing a drunk to exit onto a busy highway at night. That would be an unsafe exit. Nor is this a situation where a danger at the drop-off site was reasonably foreseeable-for example, an ice covered parking lot or a place where vagabonds were known to lurk in the bushes ready to pounce on lonely drunks. That could be considered an exit to an unsafe place. Here, the cab driver is being asked to anticipate a harm that may or may not occur at some other location and with that anticipation, act affirmatively to limit the passenger's freedom of choice or freedom of movement so that the passenger might not injure himself after he exits the cab safely.
Were we to adopt Mastriano's expansive view of duty, what should a common carrier-the airline, the bus driver, the cab driver-do if they perceive, or arguably should perceive, a passenger to be inebriated or otherwise impaired? Should they refuse to let the passenger leave the vehicle and possibly subject themselves to assault or civil liability for illegal restraint? Should they refuse to pick up the passenger and leave the person to fend for themselves by the side of the road? There is no obvious course of conduct by which any new duty to become an instrument for good could be fulfilled in a manner that is foreseeable or definable to a jury.
The Government acting through the courts or the Legislature can only go so far in requiring common carriers or others to protect people from themselves. Common carriers have no duty, to be fulfilled in an unspecified manner, to protect possibly inebriated or impaired passengers from themselves after the carrier provides them with a safe exit in a safe place. We decline to extend the law to reach that result.
Mr. Dionne's death was a tragedy, but it was a tragedy caused by his own hand in becoming intoxicated, entering his car, and driving himself to his death. The common carrier, who gave Mr. Dionne his contracted ride from Bloomfield's to the Elks Lodge and provided him a safe exit at a safe place, had no further duty to Mr. Dionne to intervene in his life and prevent the subsequent tragedy which Mr. Dionne brought on himself.
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
WATHEN, C.J., with whom DANA, J., joins, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The Court has correctly stated the general rule that the heightened duty a carrier owes its passenger continues until the carrier has discharged the passenger at a reasonably safe location. It has failed to recognize, however, that discharging an intoxicated passenger at his or her car may not be discharging the passenger at a reasonably safe location. The present case is particularly compelling because, taking the facts in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the carrier was specifically informed at the time of engagement that the passenger had had too much to drink, and he could easily have inferred that the passenger was too drunk to drive.
A place that is reasonably safe for most passengers to disembark may not, under the circumstances, be reasonably safe for a passenger who is intoxicated or otherwise disabled. Thus, when a carrier is aware that its passenger has a disability due to intoxication, age, or mental or physical condition, it must exercise reasonable care not to discharge the passenger at a place where, due to the disability, he or she is exposed to an unreasonable risk of harm. Portier v. Thrift Way Pharmacy, 476 So.2d 1132, 1140 (La. Ct. App. 1985) rev'd in part on other grounds, 479 So.2d 916 (La. 1985). The carrier's determination of whether a particular location is unreasonabl
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