Agustin v. Golden Empire Transit District (Oct. 29, 2025, No. F088135, certified for publication November 26, 2025) 2025 WL 3023020
Plaintiff was injured after falling while riding a passenger bus as it made an ordinary turn. Plaintiff sued the transit district and bus driver for negligence, alleging that the driver accelerated too quickly, drove recklessly, or made a sudden stop that caused her to fall. The trial court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment after determining that an on-board video recording conclusively showed the bus moving in an ordinary manner and the plaintiff falling while standing up without holding on to a pole or handrail.
Plaintiff appealed and argued that triable issues of fact were raised by expert testimony she submitted in opposition to summary judgement. The court of appeal affirmed judgment for defendants.
The court of appeal ruled that no triable issues of fact existed because the video “offered the most reliable account of events.” The court dismissed plaintiff’s new theory from her expert witness as outside the scope of the initial pleadings, which addressed only negligent driving and not, as the expert opined, how the driver should have warned passengers to sit or hold on before turning the vehicle.
The court of appeal clarified that questions of causation and the allocation of fault need not be submitted to a jury where, as here, evidence shows that the plaintiff’s own negligence was the sole proximate cause of the injury. The court added that although common carriers owe a heightened duty of care to passengers, this “does not make them insurers or render them strictly liable for all injuries.”
