Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Thе question in this case is whether a State may make the defense of contributory negligence available tо a railroad sued by a nonemployee for damages for personal injuries caused by the railroad’s failure to maintain its freight cars “with couplers coupling automatically by impact/’ as required by § 2 of the Federal Safety Appliance Act of 1893, 27 Stat. 531, 45 U. S. C. § 2.
Petitioner was in the employ of Cargill, Inc., at its Cedar Rapids, Iowa, meаl house and elevator on the line of respondent railroad. Petitioner’s duties were to move, weigh, and lоad freight cars spotted by respondent on Cargill’s siding track. He was working on the top of the third of a string of six cars when a coupler malfunctioned and caused the first two cars to break away. Petitioner dismounted and ran to the runaway cars. He climbed to the roof of one and was attempting to apply its brake when he fell 12 tо 14 feet to a cement apron between the tracks and suffered severe injuries. He brought this action in tort in the Iowa District Court of Linn County. The only claim submitted to the jury was that petitioner’s injuries resulted from respondent’s maintenаnce, in violation of § 2, of a freight car with a defective coupler. Over petitioner’s objection thе jury was instructed in accordance with settled Iowa tort law that it was petitioner’s burden “to establish by a preрonderance or the greater weight of
The Safety Appliance Act did not create a federal cause of action for either employеes or nonemployees seeking damages for injuries resulting from a railroad’s violation of the Act. Moore v. C. & O. R. Co.,
In contrast, the nonemployee must look for his remedy to a common-law action in tort, which is to say thаt he must sue in a state court, in the absence of diversity, to implement a state cause of action. Fairport, P. & E. R. Co. v. Meredith,
We recognize the injustice of denying recovery to a nonemployee which would not be denied to an employee performing the same task in the samе manner as did petitioner.
Affirmed.
Notes
Section 2 of the Safety Appliance Act provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any common carrier engaged in interstate commerce by railroad to haul or permit to be hauled or used on its line any car used in moving interstate traffic not equipped with cоuplers coupling automatically by impact, and which can be uncoupled without the necessity of men going between the ends of the cars.” 45 U. S. C. § 2.
In addition to the Federal Safety Appliance Act and the Federal Emрloyers’ Liability Act, see H. R. Rep. No. 1386, 60th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1908).
See Louisell & Anderson, The Safety Appliance Act and the FELA: A Plea for Clarification, 18 Law & Contemp. Prob. 281 (1953).
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
Congress, not the States, passed the Federal Safety Appliance Act of 1893, 27 Stat. 531, 45 U. S. C. § 1 et seq. Consequently, I think the quеstion of a railroad’s liability to a person injured by a violation of that Act is a federal, not a state, question. Although it is true that several old cases, cited by the Court, gave the Safety Appliance Act a different interрretation, and left injured workers to
The Federal Employers’ Liability Act of 1908, 35 Stаt. 65, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 51 et seq., allows railroad employees injured by violations of the Safety Appliance Act to recover against their employer, and contributory negligence of the employee is not a defensе. I cannot believe that Congress intended that contributory negligence should become a defense simply because the action is brought by a nonemployee, when an employee doing the same work and subjected to the same violation of the Safety Appliance Act could clearly recover. For this reаson I would hold that under federal law contributory negligence is not a defense in this case and reverse the judgment of the Iowa Supreme Court.