Case Name: Mrs. Verna M. Davis GANSLOSER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1976-11-01
Citations: 339 So. 2d 498
Docket Number: No. 13036
Parties: Mrs. Verna M. Davis GANSLOSER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees.
Judges: Before PRICE, HALL and MARVIN, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 339
Pages: 498–507

Head Matter:
Mrs. Verna M. Davis GANSLOSER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 13036.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.
Nov. 1, 1976.
En Banc. Rehearing Denied Dec. 6, 1976.
Writ Refused Feb. 14, 1977.
Skeels, Baker & Coleman by Donald L. Baker, Shreveport, for plaintiff-appellant.
Wilkinson, Carmody & Peatross by Samuel W. Caverlee, Shreveport, for defendant-appellee Kansas City Southern Ry. Co.
Bodenheimer, Jones, Klotz & Simmons by G. M. Bodenheimer, Jr., Shreveport, for defendant-appellee Trinity Universal Ins. Co.
Before PRICE, HALL and MARVIN, JJ.

Opinion:
PRICE, Judge.
This is a tort action brought by the owner of property adjoining a railroad track to recover damages caused by a train derailment after application of emergency brakes to avoid a motorist.
The principal question on appeal is whether the railroad is solidarily liable with the motorist's insurer for the damages to plaintiff's property under the application of the doctrine of strict liability of La.C.C. Article 667.
Verna M. Davis Gansloser is the owner of the residential property at 2916 Southern Avenue on the east side of the Kansas City Southern Railway Company's right-of-way north of its intersection with Ockley Drive in Shreveport. The railroad maintains two mainline tracks and a spur track on its right-of-way in this area. On August 17, 1975, Thelma S. Tyler was operating her automobile in an easterly direction on Ock-ley and stopped at the railroad track for a northbound train to pass on the east mainline track. Immediately after it cleared the intersection, she started across the west main track on which a southbound freight was approaching some 250 feet north of the crossing. On seeing the approaching train, Mrs. Tyler stopped the automobile on the track, jumped out, and ran to the passenger side in an apparent attempt to assist a guest passenger from the car. The engineer on the train made a emergency application of brakes to avoid a collision with the Tyler vehicle. The sudden braking caused the rear cars of the 168 car train to collide with cars nearer the front resulting in a derailment of several cars and a collision with the Tyler vehicle. The derailed cars collided with cars of the northbound train on the parallel track causing several of these cars to derail, leave the right-of-way, and cause substantial damage to the residence of Mrs. Gansloser.
Mrs. Gansloser filed this suit against the insurer of the Tyler vehicle, Trinity Universal Insurance Company, and the Kansas City Southern Railway Company for damages to her property.
The railroad denied liability contending the damage to the Gansloser property was caused solely by the negligence of Mrs. Tyler.
In a separate action which was consolidated with this suit for trial, the railroad seeks to recover from Trinity Universal the damages to its train equipment resulting from the negligence of Mrs. Tyler, who was killed in the accident.
Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, the insurance carrier on the Gansloser property, intervened to enforce its subrogation rights against any recovery by Mrs. Gansloser for the amount it paid under its policy.
Prior to trial of the cases, Trinity Universal deposited the policy limits of $5,000 plus interest and accrued court costs in the registry of the court.
Following trial of the merits, the court rejected Mrs. Gansloser's demand against the railroad, and rendered judgment in favor of each party against Trinity Universal. The court prorated the deposited money between Mrs. Gansloser and Kansas City Southern Railway Company according to the damage each suffered. Mrs. Gansloser sustained damages of $13,990 and was awarded $401.57. The railroad suffered damages of $166,412 and received a $4,776.73 award.
Mrs. Gansloser has appealed from the judgment rejecting her demands against the railroad contending that the trial court was in error in finding that the sole cause of the damage to her property was the negligence of Mrs. Tyler, and in failing to properly apply Article 667 to the circumstances of this case. She concedes in brief that the evidence presented on trial did not show that the train derailment resulted from any specific act of negligence on the part of the train crew, but was caused by the normal operation of the braking system. She contends the railroad is liable without proof of negligence as under Article 667 strict liability results from its activities which caused harm to her as a neighbor of the railroad right-of-way.
The railroad contends this article has no application to the operation of a railroad where the intervening negligence of a third party has caused damage. It relies on the case of Town of Jackson v. Mounger Motors, 98 So.2d 697 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1957), and a later federal case following its holding, Bianchini v. Humble Pipe Line Company, 480 F.2d 251 (5th Cir. 1973). These cases were cited by the trial judge in his reasons for refusing to subject the railroad to the rule of strict liability.
The Mounger decision stemmed from the taking of a used car without permission from a car lot adjacent to the City Hall in Jackson. The unauthorized driver backed into the fire hall causing damages. The appellate court found the strict liability of Article 667 inapplicable because the use of the car lot was not inherently dangerous, nor was there a reasonably foreseeable chance of harm. The opinion further indicated the doctrine was inappropriate when the damage resulted from an unforeseen intervening agency.
Bianchini was concerned with a break in an oil pipe line caused by an unknown ship running aground in an unofficial channel resulting in damage to oyster farmers. The federal circuit court, citing Mounger, refused to hold the owner of the pipe line liable in the absence of a finding of negligence, holding that strict liability is inapplicable when there is an unforeseeable intervening cause. Appellant argues the intervening cause in this case (Mrs. Tyler's negligence) was foreseeable by the railroad, and therefore, strict liability should apply even under the Mounger decision. This argument is based on the theory that there is a reasonable danger that a motorist will stall on a rail crossing causing the emergency application of brakes which poses a foreseeable possibility of derailment.
The fallacy of appellant's argument lies in the fact that these are only possibilities and not probabilities of occurrences. Motorists do sometimes stall on a railroad track. However, this is an unusual event. The possibility of a derailment being caused by emergency braking is shown by the evidence to be less than one per cent when a train is placed in emergency. This rate of occurrence does not render such an event reasonably foreseeable.
There is no showing the railroad could have done anything to have prevented this type of an accident from occurring. There was no defective track. The train was traveling at a speed of approximately 16 miles per hour at the time it was thrown in emergency. The engineer was alert and acted promptly. Except for the forward movement of the rear cars, he would have avoided a collision and the loss of Mrs. Tyler's life.
The sole justification for applying strict liability to the facts of this case would be to shift the economic burden of loss from a completely innocent abutting property owner to the railroad company who may possibly be in the position to pass on such losses to the public in increased freight rates. There is no present authority on which we may rely to reach such a result.
The trial judge was correct in rejecting the demands of appellant and intervenor against the railroad and the judgment appealed is affirmed at appellant's costs.
MARVIN, J., dissents and assigns written reasons.
. In her original pleadings, Mrs. Gansloser alleged negligence against the railroad in failing to maintain its train equipment in such condition that an emergency application of brakes could be made without a train derailment, and pled the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. These allegations have been abandoned prior to this appeal.