CACI No. 904. Duty of Common Carrier Toward Passengers With Illness or Disability
Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions (2025 edition)
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904.Duty of Common Carrier Toward Passengers With Illness or
Disability
If a common carrier voluntarily accepts a person with an illness or a
disability as a passenger and is aware of that person’s condition, it must
use as much additional care as is reasonably necessary to ensure the
passenger’s safety.
New September 2003; Revised May 2023
Sources and Authority
• “[I]f the company voluntarily accepts a person as a passenger, without an
attendant, whose inability to care for himself is apparent or made known to its
servants and renders special care and assistance necessary, the company is
negligent if such assistance is not afforded. In such case it must exercise the
degree of care commensurate with the responsibility which it has thus
voluntarily assumed, and that care must be such as is reasonably necessary to
insure the safety of the passenger, in view of his mental and physical condition.
This is a duty required by law as well as the dictates of humanity.” (McBride v.
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. (1955) 44 Cal.2d 113, 119-120 [279 P.2d
966], internal citation omitted.)
Secondary Sources
2 Levy et al., California Torts, Ch. 23, Carriers, § 23.02[6] (Matthew Bender)
11 California Forms of Pleading and Practice, Ch. 109, Carriers, § 109.33[1]
(Matthew Bender)
2A California Points and Authorities, Ch. 33, Carriers (Matthew Bender)
California Civil Practice: Torts § 28:6 (Thomson Reuters)
620
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