Dooring accident case will return to trial for a new causation analysis

This personal injury case reaches the Second Circuit following a trial in which the judge said the plaintiff-bicyclist was 40% liable for his injuries after he slammed into the open door of a parked vehicle owned by the federal government. That comparative negligence finding reduced the plaintiff's damages from $175,000 to $105,000. The Court of Appeals returns the case to the district court to reconsider the damages and plaintiff's own degree of fault.

The case is Dooley v. United States, issued on October 5. Plaintiff was a restaurant delivery guy in the Bronx who suffered injuries when the car door opened just as he was approaching the car. They call this "dooming," a common problem in New York City. The trial court said the driver, a federal employee, was negligent because he did not, as required, check to see if it was safe to open the car door. The court also said plaintiff was negligent in part because he had enough space on the road to avoid the parked car. But the trial court did not determine what speed would have been reasonable for plaintiff to be peddling his bicycle or what distance from the parked cars would have been appropriate.

There is more to tort liability than just duty, breach, causation, harm. Causation issues can be complex, as demonstrated by this case. Writing for the majority, Judge Calabresi, an expert in tort liability, holds that while the trial court may have had a basis to find plaintiff was negligent, it failed to link that negligence with the proximate cause of any of plaintiff's injuries. Without making any findings as to how plaintiffs conduct -- had he not acted negligently -- would have avoided his injuries, the causation analysis was faulty, and careful examination of these issues may yield a better damages result for plaintiff. For example, the district court said plaintiff was speeding on his bike, but it did not explain why speeding was a cause of the accident. When did the car door open up? Was there enough time for plaintiff to swerve out of the way? The trial court has to consider this on remand.

Also on remand, the trial court must reconsider what effect plaintiff's marijuana use might have had on the causation analysis. There was testimony that plaintiff used marijuana daily. Plaintiff testified he did not do so on work days. The district court held the pot use against plaintiff and said plaintiff had an interest in the outcome of the case and thus his testimony on this issue is not credible. But the district court did not properly consider the driver's interest in the case. True, had the driver acted negligently, the Court of Appeals (Calabresi, Lee and Park [dissenting] says, the federal government would be financially liable. But the driver could also be held responsible and suffered punishment or some penalty. Bear in mind that a trial court ruling from 1994 says that under New York law, habitual marijuana use alone may not be enough to show the plaintiff-victim was impaired at the time of an accident. 

Another problem with the district court's analysis is its holding that plaintiff could have driven further away from the parked car to avoid injury. Plaintiff was riding his bike in a bike shoulder. Also, New York law does not require the bicyclist to remain at a particular distance from parked cars. The trial court on remand must reconsider its findings based on the majority's interpretation of New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law. In the end, the majority says, "there is simply no evidence sufficient to say that had Dooley been riding where it was reasonable for him to ride, the accident would have been avoided."