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Nature of Suit Code: 330
Nature of Suit: Federal Employers' Liability
Cause of Action: 

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

· •·~ 

MARTA LOYA, as Personal 

Representative of the Estate 

of Hector Loya, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

FIL~~JJ 

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

MAY 5 1993 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk . 

v. No. 92-1076 

DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN 

RAILROAD COMPANY, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

(D. Colo., No. 91-N-575) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before MCKAY and EBEL, Circuit Judges, and LEONARD, District 

Judge. 1 

The Plaintiff-Appellant's deceased husband, Hector Loya, was 

a maintenance-of-way worker employed by the Defendant-Appellee, 

Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Company ["the Railroad"]. 

On Sunday, April 9, 1989, Mr. Loya was returning from his 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

1 The Honorable Timothy D. Leonard, United States District 

Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma, sitting by 

designation. 

Appellate Case: 92-1076 Document: 010110110047 Date Filed: 05/05/1993 Page: 1 
permanent home in Denver to his place of employment near Silt, 

Colo~ado, approximately 170 miles west of Denver, when he was 

sever~ly injured in an automobile accident . Mr. Loya's co-worker, 

who was driving the pick-up truck at the time of the accident, 

lost control of the truck on a snowy interstate highway. Mr. Loya 

was thrown from the windshield of the truck into oncoming traffic 

and died of his injuries on May 2, 1989. 

Mrs. Loya brought this suit under the Federal Employers' 

Liability Act ("FELA"), 45 U.S.C. § 51, as personal representative 

of Mr. Loya's estate. The district court granted the Railroad's 

motion for summary judgment on the ground that Mr. Loya was not 

acting within the scope of his employment at the time of his 

injury and thus was not covered by the FELA. The Plaintiff now 

appeals the dismissal of her case. 

We review the grant of summary judgment de novo. App lied 

Genetics Int'l, Inc. v. First Affiliated Sec., Inc., 912 F.2d 

1238, 1241 (10th Cir. 1990). Summary judgment is appropriate when 

there is no genuine dispute over a material fact and the moving 

party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Rusillo v. 

Scarborough, 935 F.2d 1167, 1170 (10th Cir. 1991). We view the 

record in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff. See 

Deenwater Invs., Ltd. v. Jackson Hole Ski Corp., 938 F.2d 1105, 

1110 (10th Cir. 1991). 

We hold that, taking the evidence in the light most favorable 

to the Plaintiff, the Railroad is entitled to judgment as a matter 

of law. Recovery under the FELA is permitted only if Mr. Loya's 

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Appellate Case: 92-1076 Document: 010110110047 Date Filed: 05/05/1993 Page: 2 
injury occurred "while he [was] employed by" the Railroad. 45 

U.S.C. § 51 . We have interpr eted this provision as imposing 

liability for "not only the actual work performed in interstate 

commerce, but those acts which can be said to be necessarily 

incident thereto." Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co. v. Wattle, :• ... 

193 F.2d 628, 630 (10th Cir. 1952). However, we also recognized 

that the FELA was not meant to cover all of a railroad employee's 

activities: 

[G]iven the most liberal interpretation, the Act cannot 

be extended to cover activities not necessarily incident 

to or an integral part of employment in interstate 

commerce. It obviously does not cover activities 

undertaken by an employee for a private purpose and 

having no causal relationship with his employment. 

Wattle, 193 F.2d at 630. Generally, employees injured while 

commut i ng to and from work are not considered to be within the 

scope of their employment for FELA purposes. See,~. Getty v. 

Boston and Marine Corp., 505 F.2d 1226, 1228 (1st Cir. 1974); 

Metropolitan Coal Co. v. Johnson, 265 F.2d 173, 178 (1st Cir. 

1959); Quirk v. New York, Chicago & St. Louis R.R., 189 F.2d 97, 

100 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 342 U.S. 781 (1951); Sassaman v. 

Pennsylvania R.R., 144 F.2d 950, 952-54 (3d Cir. 1944); Williams 

v. Norfolk So. Ry., 767 F. Supp. 756, 758-59 (E.D. Va. 1991); 

Spoonamore v. Louisville and Nashville R.R., 179 F. Supp. 290, 292 

(E.D. Ky. 1959). Although courts have been reluctant to establish 

a per se rule, this line of cases has led to a doctrine known as 

the "commuter rule." 

The Plaintiff contends that Mr. Loya was under the Railroad's 

control and therefore was acting within the scope of his 

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employment when the accident occurred. She cites several 

undisputed facts in support of this contention : (1 ) the movable 

nature of Mr. Loya's employment site--at which the Railroad 

provided living quarters in a railroad car outfitted with bunks, a 

kitchen, and a bathroom--created the nec~sity for travel, because 

his family could not live with him nor could his children attend 

school even if they could live with him at the work site, Aplt. 

App. D-25; F-34; (2) Mr. Loya's employment contract stated that 

"[w]hen conditions of the work permit," Railroad employees "will 

be allowed to make weekend visits to their home," Aplt. App. F-35; 

(3) Railroad employees unable to return to work on Monday were 

required to notify the Railroad's Division Offices by 7:30 a.m. 

Monday, Aplt. App. D-19; (4) Mr. Loya went to Denver to do 

laundry, see his family, and buy groceries because he could not 

read English food labels and the grocery stores near his workpl ace 

did not carry the Mexican foods he liked, Aplt. App. H-41, 46; and 

(5) Mr. Loya was paid a per diem of $9.95 per day, including 

Saturdays and Sundays, as long as he was not voluntarily absent 

from work on Monday and Friday, Aplt. App. D-20, F-34. 

Taking these facts as true, we nevertheless believe that no 

reasonable jury could find for the Plaintiff and that summary 

judgment was therefore proper. This case is governed by the 

commuter rule and Wottle. In Wottle, the railroad employee was 

responsible for providing food and bedding for his own use in the 

bunk car. We held that the employee's trip to purchase groceries 

could not be considered within the scope of FELA coverage because 

"he was on a mission wholly unconnected and unrelated to his 

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Appellate Case: 92-1076 Document: 010110110047 Date Filed: 05/05/1993 Page: 4 
employment." 193 F.2d at 631. Given that Mr. Loya made voluntary 

choices as to where to buy his food and how t o travel to his 

permanent home, we decline to hold on the facts of this case that 

there existed the level of control by the Railroad necessary to 

constitute emploYtl),ent or acts incident thereto. Nor do we find 

indicative of Railroad control the fact that Mr. Loya had to 

notify the Railroad if he could not attend work on Mondays or the 

fact that Mr. Loya could be required to work on weekends. 

The major distinction between Wottle and Mr. Loya's case is 

that Mr. Loya received a daily per diem for the purchase of food 

and linens, even when he did not work on Saturdays and Sundays. 

Although pay can be an indicia of control by the employer and 

therefore an indication that Mr. Loya was within the scope of 

employment, the per diem in this case merely served as an 

incentive for Mr. Loya to come to work on Monday because per diem 

was not paid for the weekend unless the employee showed up for 

work on Monday. The payment of a per diem, in the absence of 

other evidence of control by the Railroad, does not indicate that 

Mr. Loya was acting within the scope of his employment at the time 

of the accident. 

Indeed, a number of facts compel the conclusion that the 

Railroad exercised no control over Mr. Loya's weekend activities. 

Mr. Loya chose to go to Denver, chose when to go to Denver and 

when to return to Silt, chose the means of transportation, and 

chose the route of travel. There are no facts supporting a 

finding that the Railroad exercised control over Mr. Loya at the 

time of the accident or that Mr. Loya was acting within the scope 

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of his employment at the time of the accident. We therefore 

AFFIRM the district court 's ord er granting the Railroad's motion 

for summary judgment. 

Entered for the Court 

David M. Ebel 

Circuit Judge 

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