Case Name: SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellant, v. C. D. FORD, Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1955-10-19
Citations: 92 So. 2d 160
Docket Number: 
Parties: SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellant, v. C. D. FORD, Appellee.
Judges: DREW, C. J., and TERRELL and BARNS, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 92
Pages: 160–168

Head Matter:
SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellant, v. C. D. FORD, Appellee.
Supreme Court of Florida. Special Division A.
Oct. 19, 1955.
On Rehearing Nov. 7, 1956.
Rehearing Denied Feb. 5, 1957.
Walter Humkey, Henry Burnett, Hervey Yancey and Fowler, White, Gillen, Yancey & Humkey, Miami, for appellant.
Nichols, Gaither, Green, Frates & Beck-ham, William S. Frates, William R. Col-son and Sam Daniels, Miami, for appellee.

Opinion:
ROBERTS, Justice.
The plaintiff, an employee of the defendant railroad company, developed a skin disease in 1947. He consulted several doctors and was informed that he probably had an occupational contact dermatitis, but the specific cause was not determined until 1951. At that time, the plaintiff accidently-spilled on his bare skin a rust inhibitor known as "Nalco", supplied to plaintiff by defendant for use in his work, and the skin disease was then diagnosed as contact dermatitis from the use of chromate compounds. The instant suit was filed in 1953 under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq., based on defendant's negligence in failing to provide him with a safe place and safe materials with which to work. The defendant denied negligence and pleaded the three-year statute of limitations contained'in Section 56 of the above Act. The defendant's motion for summary judgment as to that portion of plaintiff's -claim which arose more than three years prior to the institution of suit was denied, trial was had before the jury, and a verdict in the amount of $47,500 was returned in favor of plaintiff. Defendant's motion for new trial was denied, and this appeal followed.
First, as to the effect of the three-year limitations provision of the Act: It was held by the Supreme Court of the United States in Urie v. Thompson, 1939, 337 U.S. 163, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 1025, 93 L.Ed. 1282, that the statute would not begin to run on a cause of action based on the occupational disease of silicosis until the plaintiff knew he had the disease. The court said in that case, as against the contention that the statute began to run when he contracted the disease:
"We do not think the humane legislative plan intended such consequences to attach to blameless ignorance. Nor do we think those consequences can be reconciled with the traditional purposes of statutes of limitations, which conventionally require the assertion of claims within a specified period of time after notice of the invasion of legal rights. The record before us is clear that Urie became too ill to work in May of 1940 and that diagnosis of his condition was accomplished in the following weeks. There is no suggestion that Urie should have known he had silicosis at an earlier date."
In City of Miami v. Brooks, Fla.1954, 70 So.2d 306, 309, we were concerned with a cause of action based on negligence in the use of an X-ray machine, where the injurious effects of such negligence did not appear until after the running of the statute of limitations there applicable. In holding that the action was not barred, this court cited with approval the Urie case, supra, and said:
"In other words, the statute attaches when there has been notice of an invasion of the legal right of the plaintiff or he has been put on notice of his right to a cause of action. To hold otherwise, under circumstances of this kind, would indeed be a harsh rule and prevent relief to an injured party who was without notice during the statutory period of any negligent act that might cause injury."
This court has consistently followed the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in its interpretation of the Act in question, Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Strickland, Fla.1955, 80 So.2d 914; and we think it must be held, under the authority of the Urie case, supra, as well as the decision of this court in the City of Miami case, supra, that no part of the plaintiff's claim was -barred by the statute. This must be so, because the plaintiff had no notice that there had been an invasion of his legal right to have a reasonably safe place and reasonably safe materials with which to work, until the particular irritant causing the dermatitis was isolated and diagnosed. The mere fact that the plaintiff developed an occupational disease does not impose a liability upon the defendant to respond in damages. The basis of defendant's liability under the Federal Employers' Liability Act is its negligence, Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Strickland, supra, 80 So.2d 914; and until the exact deleterious substance causing the disease, and the circumstances surrounding the supplying and use of same, are known to plaintiff, he cannot know whether he has a cause of action against the defendant on account of its negligence in the matter; and, a fortiori, he can neither state nor .prove a cause of action against the defendant until such facts are known to him.
The plaintiff apparently used due diligence in trying to discover the exact cause of his skin condition, and no showing is made that he should have known the cause of his condition at an earlier date. We hold, therefore, that the statute did not begin to run against plaintiff's claim until the diagnosis isolating chromium compounds as the cause of his disease was made, and that no part of his claim is barred by the statute.
The case relied on by defendant, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. State Industrial Commission, 1948, 200 Okl. 281, 192 P.2d 1015, is not applicable here because it was a workmen's compensation case, and negligence of the employer is not required to be shown in order to recover workmen's compensation under such Acts.
The defendant also complains here of errors of the trial judge in refusing certain instructions requested by it, in the admission of certain evidence, and in allowing counsel for plaintiff to call defendant's employees as its witnesses under Rule 37, 30 F.S.A. and to cross-examine and impeach them. It is also contended that remarks of counsel for the plaintiff and the trial judge were prejudicial. Insofar as the question of liability is concerned, these errors, if any, must be held harmless in view of the uncontradicted evidence from which the jury could have found that the defendant was negligent in supplying the plaintiff with "Nalco" under the circumstances shown by the record; and we think no useful purpose would be served by submitting to another jury the question of the defendant's negligence. Accordingly, the judgment appealed from is affirmed as to the liability of defendant.
It is also contended that the court erred in admitting into evidence the mortality tables and in instructing the jury on permanent injuries. This contention must be sustained.
It is well settled that the mortality tables are not admissible in the absence of evidence of permanent injury, Ward v. Stanley, 1938, 130 Fla. 642, 178 So. 398; Atlanta & Saint Andrews Bay R. Co. v. Pittman, 130 Fla. 624, 178 So. 297. The evidence showed that, at the time of trial, the plaintiff's dermatitis had cleared up completely. It was shown by plaintiff's expert witnesses that plaintiff still had a sensitivity to chromate compounds and that he was suffering from an anxiety tension state — or "nervousness", in lay language— contributed to in large part by the dermatitis. But no witness would venture an opinion as to how long either the sensitivity or the nervousness would last; no witness said that there was even a possibility that these injuries were permanent. In such case, we think the plaintiff has failed to carry his burden of showing permanent injuries. As stated in Saucer v. City of West Palm Beach, 155 Fla. 659, 21 So.2d 452, 455, in another context: "If the doctors who treated appellant do not say there is any permanent injury, the jury composed of laymen certainly could not be expected to say there was such injuries; if they did it would be reversible error."
It was, then, error to admit in evidence the mortality tables and to charge the jury that they could be considered in determining the plaintiff's damages for impairment of his earning capacity — since this charge certainly implied that plaintiff's earning capacity had been permanently impaired, for which, as noted, there was no evidentiary basis. It might also be stated, parenthetically, that we can find in the record no direct evidence that plaintiff's earning capacity will be even temporarily impaired by his "nervousness" and sensitivity to chromate compounds.
Since the judgment must be reversed for a new trial on the question of damages for the reason stated above, no useful purpose would be served in discussing the question of the excessiveness of the verdict, also argued here by defendant.
For the reasons stated, the judgment is affirmed insofar as the question of liability is concerned, but is reversed and remanded for a new trial on the question of damages alone.
Affirmed in part and reversed in part.
DREW, C. J., and TERRELL and BARNS, JJ., concur.