Mobility for Minnesotans may mean mischief

Listen to this article

Minnesotans are a mobile lot. They transport themselves around the highways and byways of the state in many different vehicles.

But occasionally their mobility means mischief occurs.

While personal injury cases arising out of vehicle collisions involve automobiles, other instrumentalities also contribute to a fair share of personal injury caselaw.

Two diverse methods of transportation, bicycles and snowmobiles, were at the heart of a series of rulings by the Minnesota Court of Appeals this past spring. The cases touched upon a number of recurring and unusual legal issues as different as the modes of transportation themselves.

Cycle cases

A trio of bicycle cases raised a cycle of issues ranging from eligibility for no-fault insurance benefits to common law and comparative culpability.

Two of the cases involved bus-bicycle accidents. In Amco Ins. Co. v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 622, 2001 WL 537078 (Minn. Ct. App. May 22, 2001), a bicyclist who collided with a school bus was required to have his no-fault benefits paid by his own no-fault insurer, rather than that of the school district. The bicyclist was covered for no-fault purposes as a household resident of a relative who had a personal automobile policy.

The no-fault carrier paid no-fault benefits to the bicyclist, and then sought to recover them from the school district, claiming that the district had priority for payment of no-fault benefits to the bicyclist under Minnesota no-fault insurance law. The Ramsey County District Court agreed, requiring the school district to reimburse the no-fault carrier.

The Court of Appeals reversed on grounds of an exemption under the no-fault law for school buses. The “narrow issue” in the case was whether a school bus constitutes a “motor vehicle” for purposes of no-fault priority. If it does, then the school district has priority and must pay; if it does not, then the bicyclist’s own insurer gets stuck with the no-fault expenses. Although a bus ordinarily would have first priority, Minn. Stat. sec. 65B.47, subd. 1A(3), specifically exempts from such priority any vehicle being “used to transport children to school or to a school-sponsored activity.”

The “plain language” of the statute, complemented by legislative history, indicated that school buses were not intended to be given first priority for payment of no-fault benefits to injured bus occupants. There is no “logical or supportable reason” why the lack of first priority for no-fault coverage for occupants of a bus should be any different than for “non-occupants” struck by school buses. Accordingly, school buses are exempt from first priority and the bicyclist’s insurance must bear the no-fault costs.

A bicyclist who was seriously injured and incurred medical expenses of nearly $300,000 after he struck a school bus at an uncontrolled intersection in Bloomington lost his claim in Byrd v. Kemmer, 2001 WL 506635 (Minn. Ct. App. May 15, 2001) (unpublished). The bicyclist, a 35-year-old man, rode his bike off of a sidewalk and crashed into the side of a turning bus. The bicyclist then fell under the bus and sustained a broken pelvis and collapsed lung. He had been drinking heavily until the wee hours of that morning, and recorded a .11 blood alcohol concentration after the accident. He claimed the bus had stopped in an intersection crosswalk, forcing him to swerve to avoid a collision, and that the bus did not signal an upcoming right turn. The bus driver contended that he did not see the bicyclist until a “split second” before the collision and that he was driving properly, which was confirmed by some of the students riding the bus.

Both parties to the collision had their testimony corroborated by reconstruction experts, but the Hennepin County District Court jury sided with the bus driver, finding the bicyclist solely responsible for the accident and awarding “zero” damages.

The bicyclist challenged the verdict, but the Court of Appeals affirmed. While a bicyclist generally has the right-of-way in an uncontrolled intersection, a bicycle rider may not “suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and go into the path of a vehicle which is so close as to be impossible for the driver to yield.” The evidence supported the jury’s conclusion that the bicyclist was not in the crosswalk when the bus began turning, which predicated the determination that the bus driver is not at fault. The absence of any damage award, notwithstanding the undisputed severity of the damages, was not sufficient to “show prejudice or render the verdict perverse.”

Because the jury properly could have assigned “100 percent of the negligence” to the bicyclist, the injured bicyclist was not entitled to a new trial solely on the issue of damages. The court also refused to overturn the verdict because the facts in the case were “disputed” and a reasonable jury could, as this one did, find the bus driver “not negligent.”

The assessment of culpability between a bicyclist and the vehicle with which it collided also was at the heart of the case in W.G.O. v. Crandall, 2001 WL 314619 (Minn. Ct. App. Apr. 3, 2001) (unpublished), rev. granted (June 19, 2001). The case similarly concerned a bicycle-vehicle collision at an intersection, but a Mower County District Court jury found that the driver of the vehicle was 80 percent at fault and the bicyclist only 20 percent at fault, and awarded damages to the injured bicyclist.

The driver appealed on several grounds, including the contention that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the “emergency rule,” a doctrine that can exonerate a driver whose vehicle strikes someone in exigent circumstances. The driver contended that an “emergency” instruction was obligatory because the bicyclist suddenly entered the intersection before the car driver could take evasive action.

The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the trial court properly declined to give an “emergency” instruction to the jury. It noted that the “emergency rule” is an exception to the general principle that a driver owes a duty to exercise ordinary and reasonable care in the operation of his vehicle. The common law emergency rule, as codified in the standard jury instructions, provides that a person who confronts an emergency through “no negligence” of his or her own but then attempts and fails to avoid the danger is not liable because he or she did not “choose the best or safest way … unless the choice was so hazardous that a reasonable person would not have made it under like circumstances.” In effect, it allows the jury to find a party not liable when the party tried to take action to avoid an accident that arose because of a sudden development.

The doctrine was not applicable in this case because the person “seeking to invoke the emergency rule” must not have contributed to the “emergency situation.” In this case, any claim of emergency was the driver’s “own creation” because the driver testified that she saw the bicyclist, along with a companion bike rider, about 500 feet away from the intersection and did not apply her brakes until the bicyclist actually entered the intersection. She did not swerve or honk her horn, and failed to try to stop before striking the bicyclist. The driver’s “initial negligence” in not taking precaution before reaching the intersection “deprived her of the right to have the emergency instruction given.”

A dissent
ing opinion would have reversed the determination of liability because of improper testimony by the bicyclist’s accident reconstruction expert that “went well beyond the permissible scope” of such testimony. The dissent criticized the reconstructionist’s testimony about the speed of a “normal prudent driver,” which the dissent deemed created an “arbitrary standard of care” that improperly was “bound to influence the jury’s assessment,” even though the driver was driving within the statutory speed limit at the time of the accident.

The dissent also would have reversed based on failure to give an “emergency rule” instruction, which the dissent felt was applicable because the car driver’s “pre-emergency conduct” was not negligent as a matter of law. Accordingly, the jury should have been allowed to weigh whether the driver acted prudently under the abrupt circumstances presented when the bicyclist came into the intersection.

The court did, however, give the driver some solace, answering a “close question” by allowing the driver a collateral source offset for approximately $20,000 of no-fault insurance payments made by the bicyclist’s no-fault carrier. Although the collateral source motion was filed after the 10-day time period for a collateral source reduction under Minn. Stat. sec. 548.36, the motion was only one day late, and the bicyclist was aware that the claim was going to be made because it had earlier been asserted prematurely. Further, the bicyclist did not object to the trial court’s consideration of the offset claim at the time it was made.

The dissent may have prodded the Supreme Court to consider the case. It granted review and will soon pass upon these issues.

Emergency excuse

The “emergency rule” also reared its head as a claimed excuse in one of the two recent snowmobile cases. In Arndt-Schumacher v. Craig, 2001 WL 682882 (Minn. Ct. App. June 19, 2001) (unpublished), the Hubbard County District Court gave an emergency instruction to the jury in a case involving a head-on collision between a snowmobile and a rural mail delivery vehicle. The accident occurred after the snowmobiler came around a blind curve on the wrong side of the road. The court’s utilization of the emergency rule preceded the jury’s verdict in favor of the mail carrier, a decision challenged by the injured snowmobiler.

The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the trial court properly instructed the jury on the “emergency rule” as well as on the issue of superceding causes. The mail delivery vehicle was “confronted with an emergency or peril” and had “only a split second” to react before the impact around the corner. Consequently, it was appropriate to give the jury an instruction on the “emergency rule” for the mail carrier. Similarly, an instruction on superceding cause was proper because, even if the mail deliverer initially was negligent in careening around the curve, the snowmobiler’s negligence in driving on the wrong side of the road could be regarded as a superceding cause that could exonerate the vehicle driver.

Post-trial motions made in an attempt to overturn a negligent repair verdict involving injuries to a snowmobile rider were permitted in Ransom v. L.N.D. Properties, 2001 WL 682757 (Minn. Ct. App. June 19, 2001) (unpublished). A snowmobiler sued a snowmobile dealership for negligent repair of a snowmobile after he was injured when a portion of the machine that had been subject to prior repair by the dealership came loose and struck and severely injured the claimant.

A Lac Qui Parle County District Court jury found the repairs were done negligently and awarded about $400,000 in damages to the snowmobiler. The trial court refused to allow post-trial motions challenging the verdict based on a lack of qualifications of the injured driver’s expert, the failure to establish negligence, and the existence of a “joint enterprise” between the driver and the repair facility, on grounds that the motions were untimely.

The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the facility’s attorney could have reasonably believed that the trial court had granted an extension for the filing of post-trial motions beyond the 30-day time period allowed for under Rule 59.03 of the Minnesota Rules of Civil Procedure.

Due to a “miscommunication” between the court administrator and the facility’s attorney, a hearing challenging the verdict was conducted 52 days after the order was filed for judgment. The erroneous scheduling stemmed from the trial judge’s approval to hear the post-trial motion by telephone, which the court administrator then scheduled beyond the 30-day limit. Under these circumstances, the movant’s attorney could have been led to “reasonably believe” that the court had approved an extension of the 30-day period. The court, however, urged counsel to “obtain a written confirmation” of any such extensions, which it allowed to be circumvented in the “unique facts” of this case.

These cases reflect the multitude of matters that may arise when mobile Minnesotans take to the roadways and byways. Whether by bicycle or snowmobile, when injuries occur, litigation is bound to follow.

Marshall H. Tanick is an attorney with the Twin Cities law firm of Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen, P.A. He is certified as a civil trial specialist by the Minnesota State Bar Association and represents employers and employees in a variety of workplace-related matters.