RTD Held Liable for Riders’ Safety : But State High Court Sees No Need for Guards on Buses

In its unprecedented blitz of 20 year-end opinions issued Tuesday, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Southern California Rapid Transit District has a duty to protect passengers from assault but stopped short of ordering armed guards on each bus.

The court also outlawed air surveillance of suspected marijuana crops near homes and said insurance companies are liable for bad-faith acts, even during litigation.

In the RTD decision, written by Justice Joseph Grodin, the court reinstated a case filed by five passengers who were injured when a fight broke out among juvenile bus riders. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lawrence Waddington had dismissed the suit on the grounds that the transit district was immune from liability under state law.

‘Duty of Utmost Care’

“We hold that (state law) imposes upon all common carriers--public or private--a duty of utmost care and diligence to protect their passengers from assaults by fellow passengers,” Grodin wrote.

“We reiterate, however, that carriers are not insurers of their passengers’ safety and will not automatically be liable, regardless of the circumstances, for any injury suffered by a passenger at the hands of a fellow passenger,” the opinion said.

The carrier is liable, the court said, only when officials can reasonably expect assaults and could thwart them.

Grodin rejected the RTD’s argument that the duty to protect passengers would require a “colossal financial burden” to hire armed guards, stating: “Finding such a duty to exist is not the functional equivalent of finding a duty to provide an armed security guard on every bus.”

Other methods can be used to quell assaults, the court suggested, including a warning by the driver to unruly passengers and the summoning of police by radio communication or special alarm lights.

In the air surveillance case, the court overturned 6 to 1, with Justice Malcolm Lucas dissenting, the conviction of Larry Lynn Cook for cultivation of marijuana at his home in Bonsall in northern San Diego County.

Prosecutors said, however, that the ruling may have little effect on the state’s current Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP). The case predated the state’s Proposition 8, the victim’s bill of rights, which they believe may have given authorities new provisions for warrantless checks on fields.

“Overflights are critically important to the CAMP program,” said Steve White, chief assistant attorney general of the criminal division. “But we want to read and analyze this opinion. It may not affect our program at all.”

The opinion cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision (Oliver vs. U.S.) that says uninhabited fields and woodlands can be inspected but that areas “immediately surrounding and associated with the home” remain protected by privacy rights. Cook’s backyard, the justices said, qualifies for privacy.

Question of Liability

In a ruling with potentially significant effect on insurance companies, the court held by a 5-2 vote that insurance companies, which have a duty to pay legitimate claims or face lawsuits, may be liable for bad-faith actions after litigation begins.

Western Title Insurance Co. lawyers, trying to overturn a $20,000 judgment over the handling of a title search case, had argued that once a suit is filed, the company and the claimant who sued are adversaries, ruling out obligations of fairness.

Dissenting were Justices Otto Kaus and Lucas, who said the majority showed “a complete failure meaningfully to consider or accord any weight to the right of a defendant to defend itself.”