Opinion ID: 230
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Early FELA cases

Text: Early FELA cases did not interpret the language resulting in whole or in part as altering the common-law requirement of proximate cause. [3] For instance, in St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Co. v. Conarty, 238 U.S. 243, 35 S.Ct. 785, 59 L.Ed. 1290 (1915), a widow sought damages for the death of her husband, who was caught in a collision of an engine with another car, from which the coupler and drawbar were missing. According to the plaintiff, [h]ad these appliances been in place they, in one view of the evidence, would have kept the engine and the body of the car sufficiently apart to have prevented the injury. Id. at 248, 35 S.Ct. 785. There was no question that the absence of the coupler and the drawbar constituted a violation of a safety rule and, therefore, negligence. Nevertheless, the Court held that there was not a sufficient nexus between the negligence and the injury to send the case to the jury. In reaching this determination, the Court observed: The principal question in the case is whether, at the time he was injured, the deceased was within the class of persons for whose benefit the safety appliance acts required that the car be equipped with automatic couplers and drawbars of standard height; or, putting it in another way, whether his injury was within the evil against which the provision for such appliances are directed. It is not claimed, nor could it be, under the evidence, that the collision was proximately attributable to a violation of those provisions, but only that, had they been complied with, it would not have resulted in injury to the deceased. It therefore is necessary to consider with what purpose couplers and drawbars of the kind indicated are required, for where a duty is imposed for the protection of persons in particular situations or relations a breach of it which happens to result in injury to one in an altogether different situation or relation is not, as to him, actionable. Id. at 249, 35 S.Ct. 785; see also Lang v. New York Cent. R.R. Co., 255 U.S. 455, 461, 41 S.Ct. 381, 65 L.Ed. 729 (1921) (referencing Conarty and noting the difference between proximate cause and but for causation). In sum, the Court required that the injury be a direct or proximate result of the violation of the safety regulation (i.e., the negligent act) in order for liability under the FELA to be imposed.