Summary Judgment for Defendants Reversed on the Basis that Defendants Failed to Make a Prima Facie Showing that They Did Not Breach a Duty Owed to Plaintiff.

The plaintiff alleged she sustained injuries while attempting to board a vehicle. She claimed that, as she stepped off the curb into the street, she tripped on a bulge in the street between the curb and the vehicle. The vehicle was owned and operated by the defendants. 

The court opined that “[a] common carrier owes a duty to a passenger to provide a reasonably safe place to board and disembark its vehicle” and “34 RCNY 4–11(c) requires taxis and for-hire vehicles to be within 12 inches of the curb when picking up or discharging passengers.” Because the defendant driver of the vehicle admitted that he pulled up two feet from the curb, the court concluded that summary judgment should have been denied. 

The defendants also failed to establish that the driver’s actions were not the proximate cause of the accident, as it could be found that it was reasonably foreseeable the plaintiff would become injured as it was the natural and foreseeable consequence of the risk created by the driver’s negligence. 

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