Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/395/164/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 02:32:14+00:00

Document:
Crane v. Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Railway Co.
The Federal Safety Appliance Act of 1833 requires interstate railroads to equip freight cars "with couplers coupling automatically by impact," but does not create a federal cause of action for employees or nonemployees seeking damages for injuries resulting from a railroad's violation of the Act. The Federal Employers' Liability Act of 1908 provides a cause of action for a railroad employee based on a violation of the Safety Appliance Act, in which he is required to prove only the statutory violation and the carrier is deprived of the defenses of contributory negligence and assumption of risk. Petitioner, a nonemployee of respondent railroad, sued in the Iowa courts for damages resulting from a defective coupler, in violation of the Safety Appliance Act. The jury, which was instructed that petitioner had "to establish by a preponderance or the greater weight of the evidence . . . that [he] was free from contributory negligence," returned a verdict for the railroad.
Held: In accordance with consistent interpretation of the statutory scheme, a nonemployee must look for his remedy to a common law action in tort, and, in the absence of diversity, must sue in a state court, and the definition of causation and the availability of the defenses of assumption of risk and contributory negligence are left to state law. Pp. 395 U. S. 166-167.
___ Iowa ___, 160 N.W. & 838, affirmed.
the evidence . . . that [he] was free from contributory negligence," defined as "negligence on the part of a person injured . . . which contributed in any way or in any degree directly to the injury." The jury returned a verdict for respondent railroad. The Supreme Court of Iowa affirmed, ___ Iowa ___, 160 N.W.2d 838 (1968). We granted certiorari. 393 U.S. 1047 (1969). We affirm.
The Safety Appliance Act did not create a federal cause of action for either employees or nonemployees seeking damages for injuries resulting from a railroad's violation of the Act. Moore v. C. & O. R. Co., 291 U. S. 205 (1934). Congress did, however, subsequently provide a cause of action for employees: the cause of action created by the Federal Employers' Liability Act of 1908, 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq., embraces claims of an employee based on violations of the Safety Appliance Act. In such actions, the injured employee is required to prove only the statutory violation, and thus is relieved of the burden of proving negligence, O'Donnell v. Elgin, J. & E. R. Co., 338 U. S. 384 (1949); Coray v. Southern Pac. R. Co., 335 U. S. 520 (1949); Affolder v. New York, C. & St. L.R. Co., 339 U. S. 96 (1950). He is not required to prove common law proximate causation, but only that his injury resulted "in whole or in part" from the railroad's violation of the Act, 45 U.S.C. § 51; Rogers v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 352 U. S. 500 (1957), and the railroad is deprived of the defenses of contributory negligence and assumption of risk, 45 U.S.C. §§ 53, 54.
In contrast, the nonemployee must look for his remedy to a common law action in tort, which is to say that 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, 292 U. S. 589 (1934).
duty sprang from the principle of the common law . . . , and was left to be enforced accordingly. . . ."
We recognize the injustice of denying recovery to a nonemployee which would not be denied to an employee performing the same task in the same manner as did petitioner. [Footnote 3] But it is for Congress to amend the statute to prevent such injustice. It is not permitted the Court to rewrite the statute.
In addition to the Federal Safety Appliance Act and the Federal Employers' 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).
whatever remedies they might have under state law, the premises of these old decisions have been thoroughly, and I think properly, discredited. See J. I Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426 (1964).
The Federal Employers' Liability Act of 1908, 35 Stat. 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 defense. 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 reason, 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.

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