Do you ever worry about whether the condition of a public transportation vehicle is up to snuff? How about if the vehicle’s operator is licensed and trained properly? If you do, rest assured that Louisiana law imposes a heightened duty of care on common carriers who offer services to the general public.
In a decision rendered in 1945, the Louisiana Supreme Court established in Gross v. Teche Lines, Inc., et al. that “a carrier of passengers is not an insurer, but it is required to exercise the highest degree of care, vigilance and precaution for the safety of those it undertakes to transport and is liable for the slightest negligence. In truth, in many cases, the fact of injury to a passenger gives rise to the presumption that the carrier was negligent…”
Additionally, Gross provides that “where a passenger is injured in an accident and has failed to reach his destination in safety, the burden is on the carrier to prove itself free from fault, but it is not required to show how and why the passenger was injured in order to bar recovery.”
The paramount ruling in Gross is exemplified in Galland v. New Orleans Public Service, Inc. In Galland the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit’s ruling and allowed a plaintiff to recover for injuries she sustained when falling off of a bus. In its determination the Court quoted the language in Gross providing that the “mere showing of an injury to a fare-paying passenger on a public conveyance and his failure to reach his destination establishes a prima facie case of negligence and imposes the burden on the carrier of convincing by overcoming the prima facie case.” In Galland the defendant did not prove itself free from negligence,therefore, the plaintiff was entitled to recovery.