D. Michael Risinger, Seton Hall University School of Law, has posted Off the Rails: The Surprising Story of Smith v. Rapid Transit, Inc.:
A large percentage of lawyers of my generation and later would recognize the case of Smith v. Rapid Transit, Inc. because the short opinion of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court was presented in its entirety in leading casebooks. The reader may recall that, according to the opinion, the evidence presented by the Plaintiff, Betty Smith, was insufficient to raise a jury issue on the question of Rapid Transit’s ownership of the bus which she testified ran her off the road and caused her to collide with a parked car. However, a close look at the realities of transportation in Winthrop in 1941 makes it almost certain that any bus operating in Winthrop at 1:00 a.m. on the date and at the place of the accident was indeed a Rapid Transit bus. But beyond that, newly discovered material casts a surprising light on the conventional understanding of the dispute that led to the opinion.--Dan Ernst
