Task: songer_direct1

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for government tax claim; for person claiming patent or copyright infringement; for the plaintiff alleging the injury; for economic underdog if one party is clearly an underdog in comparison to the other, neither party is clearly an economic underdog; in cases pitting an individual against a business, the individual is presumed to be the economic underdog unless there is a clear indication in the opinion to the contrary; for debtor or bankrupt; for government or private party raising claim of violation of antitrust laws, or party opposing merger; for the economic underdog in private conflict over securities; for individual claiming a benefit from government; for government in disputes over government contracts and government seizure of property; for government regulation in government regulation of business; for greater protection of the environment or greater consumer protection (even if anti-government); for the injured party in admiralty - personal injury; for economic underdog in admiralty and miscellaneous economic cases. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

PER CURIAM.
This appeal from a directed verdict in favor of the defendant in an action brought by the administratrix of a deceased brakeman, who was killed while riding on an engine of the appellee railroad company as the result of a collision with a tractor-trailer at a grade crossing, has .been duly considered upon the record and upon the briefs and oral arguments of the attorneys. The record fails to reveal any substantial evidence of proximate negligence on the part of the railroad company and there was, therefore, no substantial evidence on which the case should have been submitted to the jury upon the issue of negligence.
We find no abuse of discretion on the part of the district judge in refusing to permit appellant to file a second amended petition. We find, moreover, that the failure of the railroad company to equip the locomotive in question with a pilot had no remote connection with the accident resulting in the death of appellant’s intestate. The railroad engine was demolished and numerous cars telescoped and piled up as the result of the collision. The equipment of the locomotive with a pilot could in no aspect have contributed to the prevention of the accident which resulted in the death of appellant’s decedent. The doctrine res ipsa loquitur has no applicability to’the facts of this case, for the reason that the tractor-trailer which collided with the locomotive was not under the control of the appellee.
An examination of the record reveals that, in his elaborate opinion, comprising 35 pages of the typewritten record, the experienced district judge made manifest his well grounded reasons for declining to submit the case to the jury and for granting a directed verdict.
In our opinion, his action was correct and, accordingly, the judgment is affirmed.
. Oral opinion.

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: A