Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/318/54/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 18:37:00+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 318 › Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co.
"such employee shall not be held to have assumed the risks of his employment in any case where such injury or death resulted in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier,"
obliterated from that law every vestige of the doctrine of assumption of risk. P. 318 U. S. 68.
2. The rule of decision in cases under the Act as amended is the doctrine of comparative negligence, which permits the jury to weigh the fault of the injured employee and to compare it with the negligence of the employer, and thereupon to do justice to both. P. 318 U. S. 65.
done. The standard of care must be commensurate to the dangers of the employment. P. 318 U. S. 67.
4. Under the Act as amended, no case is to be withheld from a jury on any theory of assumption of risk, and questions of negligence should be submitted to the jury with appropriate instructions. P. 318 U. S. 67.
5. Upon the evidence in this case under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, the question of negligence on the part of the railroad and on the part of the employee should have been submitted to the jury. P. 318 U. S. 68.
Certiorari, 317 U.S. 610, to review the affirmance of a judgment on a directed verdict for the defendant in a suit under the Federal Employers' Liability Act.
"are instructed that they must watch out for the movement of the trains, as no employee watches out for them, and no lights are used at night on the head end of backup movements except when an employee is placed at the back end with a lantern to protect a road crossing."
On the night of March 20, 1940, Tiller was standing between two tracks in the respondent's switch yards, tracks which allowed him three feet, seven and one-half inches of standing space when trains were moving on both sides.
The night was dark, [Footnote 1] and the yard was unlighted. Tiller, using a flashlight for the purpose, was inspecting the seals of the train moving slowly on one track, when suddenly he was hit and killed by the rear car of a train backing in the opposite direction on the other track. The rear of the train which killed Tiller was unlighted, although a brakeman with a lantern was riding on the back step on the side away from Tiller. The bell was ringing on the engine, but both trains were moving, and the Circuit Court found that it was "probable that Tiller did not hear cars approaching" from behind him. No special signal of warning was given.
"employee shall not be held to have assumed the risks of his employment in any case where such injury or death resulted in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier."
"the carrier can no longer interpose it as a shield against the consequences of its neglect, and hence is liable for injuries to its employees in its railroad yards or elsewhere, unless it takes precautions for their safety commensurate with the danger that they are likely to encounter."
"The conclusion is inescapable that Congress did not intend to enlarge the obligation of carriers to look out for the safety of their men when exposed to the ordinary risks of the business, and that, in circumstances other than those provided for in the amended section of the statute, the doctrine of the assumption of the risk must be given its accustomed weight. [Italics added.] "
We find it unnecessary to consider whether there is any merit in such a conceptual distinction between aspects of assumption of risk which seem functionally so identical, and hence we need not pause over the cases cited by the court below, all decided before the 1939 amendment, which treat assumption of risk sometimes as a defense to negligence, sometimes as the equivalent to non-negligence. [Footnote 2] We hold that every vestige of the doctrine of assumption of risk was obliterated from the law by the 1939 amendment, and that Congress, by abolishing the defense of assumption of risk in that statute, did not mean to leave open the identical defense for the master by changing its name to "non-negligence." As this Court said in facing the hazy margin between negligence and assumption of risk as involved in the Safety Appliance Act of 1893, "[u]nless great care be taken, the servant's rights will be sacrificed by simply charging him with assumption of the risk under another name," [Footnote 3] and no such result can be permitted here.
"a rule of public policy, inasmuch as an opposite doctrine would not only subject employers to considerable and often ruinous responsibilities, thereby embarrassing all branches of business,"
"The servant is not bound to risk his safety in the service of his master, and may, if he thinks fit, decline any service in which he reasonably apprehends injury to himself; and, in most of the cases in which danger may be incurred, if not in all, he is just as likely to be acquainted with the probability and extent of it as the master."
of Thomas v. Quartermaine, 18 Q.B.D. 685, the court held that an employee standing on a three-foot runway between two unfenced vats who was attempting to dislodge a piece of wood from one of the vats and who, by accident, fell into the other and was scalded was barred from recovery. Since he had long known of the possible dangers of the narrow passage, he was held to have assumed the risk of his position. In 1897, the English finally abandoned the common law remedy altogether as a protection for injured employees, and adopted a workmen's compensation law. 60 & Vict. c. 37.
This Court accepted the assumption of risk doctrine as applied to railroad employees, at least in part, in 1879. [Footnote 10] That decision placed the employee's assumption of risk upon the theory that an agreement to assume the risk was implied from the terms of the employment contract.
"the niceties, if not casuistries, of distinguishing between assumption of risk and contributory negligence, conceptions which never originated in clearly distinguished categories, but were loosely interchangeable until the statute attached such vital differences to them."
Pacheco v. New York, N.H. & H. R. Co., 15 F.2d 467. For an attempt to distinguish between the doctrines, see Schlemmer v. Buffalo, R. & P. Ry. Co., supra, 205 U. S. 12, and the same case at 220 U. S. 220 U.S. 590, 220 U. S. 596.
In the disposition of cases, the question of a plaintiff's assumption of risk has frequently been treated simply as another way of appraising defendant's negligence, [Footnote 18] as was done by the court below in the instant case.
"The adoption of this proposed amendment will, in cases in which no recovery is now allowed, establish the principle of comparative negligence, which permits the jury to weigh the fault of the injured employee and compare it with the negligence of the employer, and, in the light of the comparison, do justice to all concerned. [Footnote 22] "
all its various forms of contributory negligence, the fellow servant rule, and assumption of risk, must not, contrary to the will of Congress, be allowed recrudescence under any other label in the common law lexicon. The Act of 1908 and the amendment of 1939 abolish the post-Priestly v. Fowler defenses, and authorize comparison of negligence, instead of barring the employee from all recovery because of contributory negligence. They leave for practical purposes only the question of whether the carrier was negligent and whether that negligence was the proximate cause of the injury.
"In justice, the master ought to be held liable for injuries attributable to conditions under his control when they are not such as a reasonable man ought to maintain in the circumstances. [Footnote 29]"
Of course, in any case, the standard of care must be commensurate to the dangers of the business. Hough v. Railway Co., 100 U. S. 213, 100 U. S. 218; cf. Northern Pac. R. Co. v. Herbert, 116 U. S. 642, 116 U. S. 652.
long as the jury system is the law of the land and the jury is made the tribunal to decide disputed questions of fact, why it should not decide such questions as these as well as others."
We think that the question of negligence on the part of the railroad and on the part of the employee should have been submitted to the jury. The decision below is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
It was so dark that, when the engineer after the accident asked the fireman to pick up an object near the tracks, the fireman replied, "No, I am afraid to go down in the dark by myself; you come with me."
See, e.g., Toledo, St.L. & W. R. Co. v. Allen, 276 U. S. 165, 276 U. S. 171-172; Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Aeby, 275 U. S. 426, 275 U. S. 430. It is sometimes said that courts have held the master blameless in actions by employees who have entered and remained in hazardous occupations on the premise that the employee assumed the risk, but the theory has not always appeared under the name "assumption of risk," since the same result is reached by assigning a given case to one of three practically interchangeable categories: (a) the employee assumed the risk; (b) he was guilty of contributory negligence; (c) the master was not negligent. See 35 Am.Jur. 719 and 3 Labatt, Master and Servant, 2d ed. par. 1164-1172, 1205, 1210. The court below thought the Amendment eliminated defense (a) but in effect retained defense (c).
Schlemmer v. Buffalo, R. & P. Ry. Co., 205 U. S. 1, 205 U. S. 12-13.
See 35 Am.Jur. 717, and, for discussion of this view, see Pound, Economic Interpretation of Torts, 53 Harv.L.Rev. 365, 373.
"The courts went along, and commenced to weave into the decisions this assumption of risk doctrine. . . . They said, for one thing, that it is good public policy to hold the employee liable when he knew of certain conditions and did not protect himself against them; that, by doing that, you made the man better regard his two legs, or better regard his two hands, or better regard his stomach. Why, no employee of a railroad company is going out there and lose an arm or an eye or a leg and rely on a jury to make him whole."
Hearings before Sub-committee Number 4 of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., on H.R. 5755, H.R. 7336 and H.R. 7621, p. 62.
3 M. & W. 1, 6 (Ex. 1837), on the question of which was the first case creating this doctrine, cf. Chicago, M. & St.P. Ry. Co. v. Ross, 112 U. S. 377, 112 U. S. 386.
"Morally speaking, those who employ men on dangerous work without doing all in their power to obviate the danger are highly reprehensible, as I think the company were in the present instance. The workman who depends on his employment for the bread of himself and his family is thus tempted to incur risks to which, as a matter of humanity, he ought not to be exposed. But, looking at the matter in a legal point of view, if a man, for the sake of employment, takes it or continues in it with a knowledge of its risks, he must trust himself to keep clear of injury."
Woodley v. Metropolitan Dist.Ry. Co.,L.R. 2 Ex.Div. 384.
For brief discussion of the English experience, see Packer, Workman's Compensation, Sen.Doc. 618, 62nd Cong., p. 5; Cohen, Workmen's Compensation in Great Britain, chap. 5. For an account covering the history of English and American Workmen's Compensation laws, see Dodd, Administration of Workmen's Compensation, chaps. 1 & 2.
Hough v. Railway Co., 100 U. S. 213, 100 U. S. 217. See also Narramore v. Cleveland, C., C. & St.L. Ry. Co., 96 F.2d 298.
See Warren, Volenti Non Fit Injuria, etc., 8 Harv.L.Rev. 457 (1895); Bohlen, Voluntary Assumption of Risk, 20 Harv.L.Rev. 14, 91 (1906).
"The contention that you have advanced apparently implies the theory that the employee . . . voluntarily assumed the risk in spite of the fact that the employer said, in effect, 'You take the risk or you get no job.' In these days, when millions of unemployed must find work in order to save themselves and their families from distress, the situation is so desperate that men will sign any sort of waiver or agreement in order to obtain employment."
Hearings, Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., on S. 1708, p. 33.
For collections of early state cases, see 49 L.R.A. 33 and 97 Amer.State Reports 877. Early state and foreign statutes are summarized in the Report of the House Judiciary Committee on the 1906 Act, Rept. No. 2335, p. 2, and decisions on state statutes are collected in the Amer.State Rep., note 891. The Seaboard Air Line case, supra, held these statutes inapplicable to actions under the federal act.
For a vigorous attack on this decision, see Buford, Assumption of Risk Under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 28 Harv.L.Rev. 163, and see Peterson, The Joker in the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 80 Cent.L.J. 5. The House Judiciary Committee, in reporting a bill aimed at making some minor modification in the assumption of risk rule, stated that the 1908 Congress never "dreamed, when it passed this former law, that this defense [assumption of risk] would ever be raised by the use of" § 4 of the Act. Report of the House of Representatives Committee on Judiciary, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., Rept. No. 1222, on H.R. 4988, p. 4.
See 49 L.R.A. 33, 49 (Relation Between Defenses of Assumption of Risk and Contributory Negligence), and 35 Am.Jur. 719 (Pragmatic Distinctions Shown to be Lacking).
For some analysis of the cases, see Note, 32 Col.L.Rev. 1384, 53 Harv.L.Rev. 341, 71 A.L.R. 451, 89 A.L.R. 693. For an estimate of their quantity, see Schoene and Watson, Workmen's Compensation on Interstate Railways, 47 Harv.L.Rev. 389, 394.
"In thousands of cases, the doctrine is complicated by 'promise to repair,' 'peremptory order,' and other special incidents. The 'simple tool' doctrine also arose as an exception. The 'promise to repair' aspect of the question is further confused by two superimposed theories -- that the employee may rely upon such promise for a reasonable time, and, next, that, if the danger was so manifest that no reasonable person would act upon such promise, then assumption of risk is reestablished."
House Committee Report, supra, Note 14 p. 4. For a collection of citations on all of the assumption of risk problems, see 2 Roberts, Federal Liability of Carriers, 2nd ed., Chapter 39. For a discussion of the "simple tool" doctrine, see Jacob v. New York, 315 U. S. 752, 315 U. S. 756.
Harper, The Law of Tort, 292.
S. 1708, 76th Cong., 1st Sess.
Substantially the same proposal as that finally adopted in 1939 was before the 75th Congress in H.R. 7336. The chief labor exponent of that bill said: the "bill, in its nature, is intended to relieve the servant from the assumption of risk doctrine as interpreted and applied by our United States Supreme Court." Hearings, supra, Note 6 p. 69. Or, as it was put by the principal railroad representative at the 1939 Senate hearings, "Here . . . the proposal is to abolish the defense of assumed risk, to abolish it in toto." Hearings, Note 12 supra, p. 37, 38.
"But such simple doctrines do not apply equitably under the complexities of modern industrial practices when one's fellow servants may be numbered by hundreds, or even thousands, and unlimited output and maximum speed are watchwords on every hand. The common law doctrine of assumption of risk, as applied to the worker in a small factory, cannot be fairly applied to the railroad man, whose services are performed over 150 miles of railroad track, or in a large and congested railroad yard."
"The present rule apparently ignores the fact that the master, and not the servant, has control over the conditions which affect the safety of employees. . . . The existing rule not only permits the employer to be careless about the condition of his premises, but, in effect, places a premium upon his carelessness. . . ."
"Under present economic conditions, employees must, of necessity, continue to work under unsafe conditions or frequently sacrifice the fruits of many years of accumulated seniority, go on relief, or beg their bread."
"It gets back to our original argument that the courts have so enlarged upon this doctrine that we are confronted with such a situation as this: a poor fellow working in a yard, intent upon his work, and somebody kicks a car on top of him, and the courts, notwithstanding he has no knowledge of it, if he is struck, hold that he has no right to recover. It may be that he was negligent, but again I say the comparative negligence doctrine should be applied."
Hearings, Note 12 supra, p. 78.
H.R. 4988, 76th Cong., 1st Sess.
House Report, Note 14 supra, p. 6.
Senate Hearings, Note 12 supra, p. 61.
Senate Hearings, Note 12 supra, 14, 17, 76, 81.
Railroad Co. v. Jones, 95 U. S. 439, 95 U. S. 442; Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Barrett, 166 U. S. 617, 166 U. S. 619; Grand Trunk Ry. Co. v. Ives, 144 U. S. 408.
Sen. Report, supra, Note 21 p. 4.
"At the beginning, this defense [assumption of risk] was deemed to be, at most, a jury question. But repeated holdings have encroached more and more upon the right of the employee, and various new doctrines or amplifications of previous principles have tended constantly to treat this defense as one to be determined by the courts as 'matter of law' -- taking it away from the jury -- and the courts have decided now it is a question of law."
House Report, supra, Note 14 p. 1. Cf. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co. v. Koske, 279 U. S. 7, 279 U. S. 11; Toledo, St.L. & W. R. Co. v. Allen, 276 U. S. 165, 276 U. S. 170.
of risk" has been used as a shorthand way of saying that, although an employer may have violated the duty of care which he owed his employee, he could nevertheless escape liability for damages resulting from his negligence if the employee, by accepting or continuing in the employment with "notice" of such negligence, "assumed the risk." In such situations, "assumption of risk" is a defense which enables a negligent employer to defeat recovery against him. In the setting of a totally different set of circumstances, "assumption of risk" has a totally different meaning. Industrial enterprise entails, for all those engaged in it, certain hazards to life and limb which no amount of care on the part of the employer can avoid. In denying recovery to an employee injured as a result of exposure to such a hazard where the employer has in no sense been negligent or derelict in the duty owed to his employees, courts have often said that the employee "assumed the risk." Here, the phrase "assumption of risk" is used simply to convey the idea that the employer was not at fault, and therefore not liable.
legislation dealt. In giving effect to the legislative policy, care must be taken lest such ambiguity perpetuate the old mischief against which the new legislation was directed.
"shall not be held to have assumed the risks of his employment in any case where the violation by such common carrier of any statute enacted for the safety of employees contributed to the injury or death of such employee."
"the assumption of risk as a defense is abolished only where the negligence of the carrier is in violation of some statute enacted for the safety of employees. In other cases, therefore, it is retained."
Jacobs v. Southern Ry. Co., 241 U. S. 229, 241 U. S. 235. By only partially withdrawing the defense of "assumption of risk," Congress enabled the railroads to avoid liability in many situations where the employee's injury resulted from the negligence of the carrier in the only way in which an employer can be negligent -- namely, through the negligence of its servants. In other words, Congress continued to sanction the fiction of attributing to employees a willingness to bear the consequences of the carrier's negligence other than that arising from its violation of a statute enacted for the safety of employees.
or employees of such carrier. . . ."
The effect of this provision is to make it clear that, whatever other risks an employee may assume, he does not "assume the risk" of the negligence of the carrier or its other employees. Once the negligence of the carrier is established, it cannot be relieved of liability by pleading that the employee "assumed the risk."
But the 1939 amendment left intact the foundation of the carrier's liability -- negligence. Unlike the English enactment which, nearly fifty years ago, recognized that the common law concept of liability for negligence is archaic and unjust as a means of compensation for injuries sustained by employees under modern industrial conditions, the federal legislation has retained negligence as the basis of a carrier's liability. For reasons that are its concern, and not ours, Congress chose not to follow the example of most states in establishing systems of workmen's compensation not based upon negligence. Congress has, to some extent, alleviated the doctrines of the law of negligence as applied to railroad employees. By specific provisions in the Federal Employers' Liability Act, it has swept away "assumption of risk" as a defense once negligence is established. But it has left undisturbed the other meaning of "assumption of risk" -- namely, that an employee injured as a consequence of being exposed to a risk which the employer, in the exercise of due care, could not avoid is not entitled to recover, since the employer was not negligent.
be charged with contributory negligence simply because he "assumed the risk;" the inquiry is, did his conduct depart from that of a reasonably prudent employee in his situation? As Mr. Justice Holmes admonished us in the Schlemmer case, "unless great care be taken, the servant's rights will be sacrificed by simply charging him with assumption of the risk under another name." Ibid. That case was decided before the Federal Employers' Liability Act was in force. In a later case arising under the Act, Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co. v. Nixon, 271 U. S. 218, Mr. Justice Holmes, for a unanimous Court, reversed a judgment for the plaintiff on the ground that the employee's death was caused by a failure to keep a lookout, which was one of the "usual risks" of his employment. To be sure, this decision was made prior to the 1939 amendment, but, in this respect, that enactment makes no change in the law. The basis of an action under the Act remains the carrier's negligence. The carrier is not to be relieved from the consequences of its negligence by any claim that the employee "assumed the risk" of its negligence. But neither is the carrier to be charged with those injuries which result from the "usual risks" incident to employment on railroads -- risks which cannot be eliminated through the carrier's exercise of reasonable care.
principle expressed, in one of its senses, by the phrase "assumption of risk" -- namely, that a carrier is not liable unless it was negligent.
Perhaps no field of the law comes closer to the lives of so many families in this country than does the law of negligence, imbedded as it is in the Federal Employers' Liability Act. It is most desirable, therefore, that the law should not be cloudy and confused. I am not at all certain that the Circuit Court of Appeals misconceived the nature and extent of the carrier's liability after the 1939 amendment, rather than merely obscured its understanding by beclouding talk about "assumption of risk." But, since I agree that the District Court should have allowed the case to go to the jury on the issue of negligence, I concur in the decision.

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