Opinion ID: 230
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sorrell

Text: As we noted earlier, CSX maintains that, regardless of courts' interpretation of Rogers up to this point, the Supreme Court's decision in Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Sorrell, 549 U.S. 158, 127 S.Ct. 799, 166 L.Ed.2d 638 (2007), and specifically Justice Souter's concurrence in that decision, makes it clear that the holding of Rogers is much narrower than courts have perceived. We turn, therefore, to an examination of that case in our search for guidance. Sorrell, an employee of Norfolk Southern, was driving a dump truck loaded with asphalt when, somehow, Sorrell's truck veered off the road and tipped over. Sorrell, who sustained injuries as a result of the accident, maintained that another Norfolk truck had approached and forced him off the road; the other Norfolk driver, however, maintained that Sorrell simply had driven his truck off the road. Sorrell filed an action in Missouri state court under the FELA. In that action, Sorrell alleged that Norfolk had failed to provide him with a reasonably safe place to work; Norfolk countered that Sorrell's own negligence caused the accident. At trial, Sorrell proposed an instruction that required Norfolk Southern to establish that his negligence `directly contributed to cause' the injury, while allowing a finding of railroad negligence if the railroad was negligent and its negligence contributed `in whole or in part' to the injury. Sorrell, 549 U.S. at 161, 127 S.Ct. 799, 166 L.Ed.2d 638 (quoting Mo. Approved Jury Instr., Civ., No. 32.07(B) & No. 24.01, respectively). Norfolk Southern objected to the instruction on the ground that it provided a `different' and `much more exacting' standard for causation than that applicable with respect to the railroad's negligence under the Missouri instructions.' Id. The trial court overruled the objection, a jury returned a verdict in Sorrell's favor, and Norfolk Southern was unsuccessful in obtaining post-trial relief from the state courts. Norfolk Southern then filed a petition for certiorari that raised the following question: [W]hether the Missouri courts erred in determining that the causation standard for employee contributory negligence under [FELA] differs from the causation standard for railroad negligence.  Id. at 162, 127 S.Ct. 799 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted; emphasis and alteration in original). However, in its briefing before the Court, Norfolk attempted to expand the question presented to encompass what the standard of causation under FELA should be, not simply whether the standard should be the same for railroad negligence and employee contributory negligence. In particular, Norfolk contends that the proximate cause standard reflected in the Missouri instruction for employee contributory negligence should apply to the railroad's negligence as well. Id. at 163, 127 S.Ct. 799. Sorrell raised both substantive and procedural objections to Norfolk Southern's efforts. Sorrell first argued that the Court had settled the issue of the proper standard of causation in Rogers. Procedurally, Sorrell maintained, the Court had granted certiorari only to determine whether the FELA incorporated different standards of negligence for employee and railroad liability. As well, continued Sorrell, Norfolk's position was contrary to that which it had taken in the Missouri courts, where it had argued that the more lenient standard articulated in Rogers should be applied both to railroads and to employees. The Court declined the invitation to enlarge the question before it; it explained: We agree with Sorrell that we should stick to the question on which certiorari was sought and granted. We are typically reluctant to permit parties to smuggle additional questions into a case before us after the grant of certiorari. Although Norfolk is doubtless correct that we could consider the question of what standard applies as anterior to the question whether the standards may differ, the issue of the substantive content of the causation standard is significant enough that we prefer not to address it when it has not been fully presented. We also agree with Sorrell that it would be unfair at this point to allow Norfolk to switch gears and seek a ruling from us that the standard should be proximate cause across the board. What Norfolk did argue throughout is that the instructions, when given together, impermissibly created different standards of causation. It chose to present in its petition for certiorari the more limited question whether the courts below erred in applying standards that differ. That is the question on which we granted certiorari and the one we decide today. Id. at 164-65, 127 S.Ct. 799 (citations omitted). The Court then turned to the substantive question properly before it. In resolving the question whether different standards of negligence apply to the employee and the railroad under the FELA, the Court observed that, [a]bsent express language to the contrary, the elements of a FELA claim are determined by reference to the common law. Id. at 165-66, 127 S.Ct. 799. Thus, it was strong evidence against Missouri's disparate standards that the common law employed the same standard for negligence and contributory negligence. Id. at 168, 127 S.Ct. 799. Sorrell argued, however, that the FELA did contain an explicit statutory alteration from the common-law standard for negligence; specifically, the Act provides that the railroad is liable if its negligence contributed in whole or in part to the employee's injuries. The Court disagreed that this language suggested that it should depart from the common-law rule of applying the same standard of negligence for both the employee and the railroad: The inclusion of this language in one section and not the other does not alone justify a departure from the common-law practice of applying a single standard of causation. It would have made little sense to include the in whole or in part language in Section 3, because if the employee's contributory negligence contributed in whole to his injury, there would be no recovery against the railroad in the first place. The language made sense in Section 1, however, to make clear that there could be recovery against the railroad even if it were only partially negligent. Even if the language in Section 1 is understood to address the standard of causation, and not simply to reflect the fact that contributory negligence is no longer a complete bar to recovery, there is no reason to read the statute as a whole to encompass different causation standards. Section 3 simply does not address causation. On the question whether a different standard of causation applies as between the two parties, the statutory text is silent. Id. at 170-71, 127 S.Ct. 799. The Court thus concluded that the FELA does not abrogate the common-law approach, and that the same standard of causation applies to railroad negligence under Section 1 as to plaintiff contributory negligence under Section 3. Id. at 171, 127 S.Ct. 799. Justice Souter, joined by Justices Scalia and Alito, filed a separate concurring opinion. Justice Souter believed that the briefs adequately had addressed the issue of the proper standard of causation under the FELA and, therefore, thought it fair to say a word about the holding in Rogers.  Id. at 173, 127 S.Ct. 799 (Souter, J., concurring). The Justice continued that, [d]espite some courts' views to the contrary, Rogers did not address, much less alter, existing law governing the degree of causation necessary for redressing negligence as the cause of negligently inflicted harm; the case merely instructed courts how to proceed when there are multiple cognizable causes of an injury. Id. (footnote omitted). Justice Souter explained that, although Congress abrogated several common-law rules in the FELA, the FELA said nothing, however, about the familiar proximate cause standard for claims either of a defendant-employer's negligence or a plaintiff-employee's contributory negligence. Id. at 174, 127 S.Ct. 799. Turning then, specifically, to Rogers, Justice Souter wrote: Rogers left this law where it was. We granted certiorari in Rogers to establish the test for submitting a case to a jury when the evidence would permit a finding that an injury had multiple causes. 352 U.S. at 501, 506, 77 S.Ct. 443. We rejected Missouri's language of proximate causation which ma[de] a jury question [about a defendant's liability] dependent upon whether the jury may find that the defendant's negligence was the sole, efficient, producing cause of injury. Id. at 506, 77 S.Ct. 443. The notion that proximate cause must be exclusive proximate cause undermined Congress's chosen scheme of comparative negligence by effectively reviving the old rule of contributory negligence as barring any relief, and we held that a FELA plaintiff may recover even when the defendant's action was a partial cause of injury but not the sole one. Recovery under the statute is possible, we said, even when an employer's contribution to injury was slight in relation to all other legally cognizable causes. Id. at 174-75, 127 S.Ct. 799. Justice Souter did acknowledge that clarity was not well served by the statement in Rogers that a case must go to a jury where `the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury of death for which damages are sought.' Id. at 175, 127 S.Ct. 799 (quoting Rogers, 352 U.S. at 506, 77 S.Ct. 443). Nevertheless, he believed that the passage spoke to apportioning liability among the parties, each of whom was understood to have had some hand in causing damage directly enough to be what the law traditionally called a proximate cause. Id. Justice Ginsburg, concurring in the judgment, also wrote separately. Relying on many of the authorities that Mr. McBride has relied upon in the present case, Justice Ginsburg stated that the question of the proper standard of causation under the FELA is long settled, we have no cause to reexamine it. Id. at 177 (Ginsburg, J., concurring in the judgment). She explained her rationale accordingly: In Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Gottshall, 512 U.S. 532, 543, 114 S.Ct. 2396, 129 L.Ed.2d 427 (1994), we acknowledged that a relaxed standard of causation applies under FELA. Decades earlier, in Crane v. Cedar Rapids & Iowa City R. Co., 395 U.S. 164, 89 S.Ct. 1706, 23 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969), we said that a FELA plaintiff need prove only that his injury resulted in whole or in part from the railroad's violation. Id., at 166, 89 S.Ct. 1706 (internal quotation marks omitted). Both decisions referred to the Court's oft-cited opinion in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957), which declared: Under [FELA] the test of a jury case is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought. Id., at 506, 77 S.Ct. 443 (emphasis added). Rogers, in turn, drew upon Coray v. Southern Pacific Co., 335 U.S. 520, 524, 69 S.Ct. 275, 93 L.Ed. 208 (1949), in which the Court observed: Congress . . . imposed extraordinary safety obligations upon railroads and has commanded that if a breach of these obligations contributes in part to an employee's death, the railroad must pay damages. These decisions answer the question Norfolk sought to smuggle . . . into this case, . . . i.e., what is the proper standard of causation for railroad negligence under FELA. Today's opinion leaves in place precedent solidly establishing that the causation standard in FELA actions is more relaxed than in tort litigation generally. A few further points bear emphasis. First, it is sometimes said that Rogers eliminated proximate cause in FELA actions.. . . It would be more accurate, as I see it, to recognize that Rogers describes the test for proximate causation applicable in FELA suits. That test is whether employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought. 352 U.S. at 506, 77 S.Ct. 443. . . . . FELA was prompted by concerns about the welfare of railroad workers.. . . We have liberally construed FELA to further Congress' remedial goal. Gottshall, 512 U.S. at 543, 114 S.Ct. 2396. With the motivation for FELA center stage in Rogers, we held that a FELA plaintiff can get to a jury if he can show that his employer's negligence was even the slightest cause of his injury. Id. at 177-78 (citations omitted). Thus, at least in Justice Ginsburg's view, the Court left intact a relaxed standard for causation under the FELA on the authority of Rogers as well as the Court's subsequent FELA case law.