## Facts

- Joseph D. Rutherford, Jr. traveled on a regional airline flight with a connection at Lambert–St. Louis International Airport.
- Rutherford consumed multiple alcoholic drinks before and during the flight and arrived intoxicated.
- After deplaning, Rutherford engaged in erratic conduct, including climbing onto an idling luggage tug on the tarmac and later taking a golf cart inside the terminal and driving around the gate area.
- An airline gate agent requested airport security but later reported security was no longer needed after Rutherford entered the terminal without incident; the agent then pursued Rutherford on foot to stop him or keep him in sight.
- Rutherford escaped into an unlocked cleaning room off the concourse.
- Inside the room was a small trash-chute opening that led to a trash compactor located below; the compactor activated automatically through a photoelectric sensor.
- A co-worker found Rutherford in the cleaning room and assisted him in climbing into the trash chute; Rutherford fell into the compactor.
- The compactor activated shortly after the fall; Rutherford was crushed and died despite rescue efforts.
- Rutherford’s mother filed a wrongful-death negligence action against the airline entities and the City of St. Louis (airport owner/operator), alleging negligent alcohol service, negligent pursuit/failure to protect, and negligent design/operation of the compactor system (including warnings and emergency shutoff).

## Issues

1. Whether the airline, as a common carrier, owed a heightened duty to Rutherford after he deplaned and reached the terminal/tarmac area.
2. Whether the airline owed (or assumed) a separate duty through its employees’ pursuit of Rutherford, and whether any such conduct proximately caused his death.
3. Whether the City could be liable for injuries from the airport compactor system, including whether sovereign immunity applied and what duty was owed given Rutherford’s entrant status when he entered the trash chute.

## Decision

- The court affirmed summary judgment for the airline defendants and the City.
- The airline’s common-carrier duty to protect Rutherford ended once he reached a place of safety after deplaning.
- Any asserted duty arising from employee pursuit did not support liability because the pursuit did not legally cause the death; Rutherford’s actions, including entering the cleaning room and trash chute with assistance, constituted an intervening, superseding cause.
- The City’s operation of the airport was proprietary, so sovereign immunity did not bar the claim.
- Nonetheless, Rutherford was a trespasser when he entered the trash chute area, limiting the City’s duty to refraining from willful or wanton misconduct; no facts supported a breach of that limited duty.

## Legal Principles

- A common carrier’s heightened duty to passengers terminates when the passenger has been delivered to a reasonably safe place and is no longer in the carrier’s custody.
- Even if a defendant’s conduct creates or assumes a duty, negligence liability requires proximate cause; an independent, unforeseeable intervening act can constitute a superseding cause that breaks the causal chain.
- A municipality’s proprietary operation (such as running an airport) may permit tort liability notwithstanding sovereign immunity, but premises-liability duties still depend on the entrant’s status.
- For trespassers, the land possessor’s duty is generally limited to avoiding willful or wanton injury.

## Conclusion

The court held that the airline owed no actionable duty to Rutherford after he reached a place of safety and that the later pursuit did not proximately cause his death, while the City—though not protected by sovereign immunity for airport operations—owed only a minimal duty to Rutherford as a trespasser in the trash-chute/compactor area; summary judgment for all defendants was therefore affirmed.


Boyette v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 954 S.W.2d 350 (Mo. Ct. App. 1997)