Opinion ID: 2639478
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Local Hazard Claim/Specific, Individual Hazard Exception

Text: ¶ 23 Pearl additionally argues that the crossing presented a specific, individualized hazard that required the train's speed to be reduced as it approached the crossing. As noted above, federal preemption under § 20106 of excessive train speed claims is not absolute, as the statute contains an express savings clause. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that common law speed restrictions are not preserved by the savings clause within the federal statute, the terms of which allows States to adopt or continue in force an additional or more stringent law ... related to railroad safety when the law ... is necessary to eliminate or reduce an essentially local safety hazard. CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, 507 U.S. 658, 675, 113 S.Ct. 1732, 123 L.Ed.2d 387 (1993); [18] 49 U.S.C. § 20106. [19] The Easterwood Court specifically refrained from ruling on the question of federal preemption of a suit for breach of related tort law duties, such as the duty to slow or stop a train to avoid a specific, individual hazard. Easterwood, 507 U.S. at 675, n. 15, 113 S.Ct. 1732. Courts construing Easterwood have interpreted this pronouncement as the specific, individual hazard exception to federal preemption. Thus, where it is determined that a specific, individual hazard exists, a state tort law action survives for breach of the duty to slow or stop the train to avoid such a hazard. While the Easterwood footnote distinguished the specific, individual hazard from the essentially local safety hazard savings clause of the federal statute, the U.S. Supreme Court refrained from further defining the hazard or hazards that would constitute the specific, individual hazard such that would qualify for exception to federal preemption. [20] Subsequently, other courts including this one in Myers v. Missouri Pac. R.R. Co., 2002 OK 60, ¶ 27, 52 P.3d 1014, have addressed what hazards and/or conditions constitute a specific, individual hazard, [21] and likewise have determined which conditions at crossings do not constitute a specific, individual hazard. [22] ¶ 24 Pursuant to Easterwood and upon consideration of the various views espoused in its progeny, this Court in Myers held that a specific, individual hazard is a person, vehicle, obstruction, object, or event which is not a fixed condition or feature of the crossing and which is not capable of being taken into account by the Secretary of Transportation in the promulgation of uniform, national speed regulations. Myers, 2002 OK 60, ¶ 27, 52 P.3d at 1027. A specific, individual hazard refers to a unique occurrence which could lead to a specific and imminent collision and not to allegedly dangerous conditions at a particular crossing.  Id. at 1028 (emphasis added). Additionally, Myers identified certain hazards and factors that would not constitute a specific, individual hazard as follows: Hazards posed by track conditions, including those existing at grade crossings, are capable of being taken into account by the Secretary and are covered by the federal speed regulations. Factors such as general knowledge that a crossing is dangerous, traffic conditions, a crossing's accident history, sight distances, multiple crossings in close proximity, sun glare, a railroad's internal policies regarding speed, and inadequate signal maintenance are not specific, individual hazards. Id. (emphasis added). ¶ 25 In this case, Pearl argues the Railroad's alleged failure to keep a promise regarding its increase of train speeds and corresponding adjustment of warnings it would provide motorists driving over crossings in Mena, Arkansas amounts to a specific, individualized hazard. [23] Pearl argues the Railroad made false representations that it would increase train speed incrementally and it would implement certain protective measures to ensure local citizens had the same advance warning times that they had under the lower speeds. Warning devices were never altered in accordance with the alleged promises, and Pearl asserts that such promises had prevented local government from implementing their own safety measures. Thus, Pearl asserts these false representations created a specific, individualized hazard at the Pickering Street Crossing. ¶ 26 The record reveals that Pearl's specific, individual hazard theory is based entirely on the Railroad's internal speed regulations, which set a lower speed limit than the maximum allowable speed limit mandated by federal law, as referenced in a letter the Railroad's General Superintendent sent to the Mayor of Mena, Arkansas on November 11, 1997 regarding the Railroad's internal policies. [24] While the record suggests that the Railroad may have violated its own internal speed limit in traveling at 40 miles per hour at the time of this collision, this speed was clearly within the maximum speed limit established by federal law for a Class 3 track. Internal speed limits set by the Railroad are not a person, vehicle, obstruction, object, or event which is not a fixed condition or feature of the crossing incapable of being taken into account by the Secretary of Transportation. Id. at 1027. Clearly, train speed limits are capable of being taken into account by the Secretary of Transportation in the promulgation of uniform, national speed regulations, since this is exactly what the Secretary has done in establishing classifications of tracks and corresponding maximum speed limits. Such internal speed limits are not a unique occurrence which could lead to a specific and imminent collision and have nothing to do with the avoidance of a specific collision such that would fall within the definition of specific, individual hazard, as defined in Myers. Id. at 1028. Further, this Court expressly provided that a railroad's internal policies regarding speed do not constitute a specific, individual hazard. Id.; See also St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Pierce, 68 F.3d 276 (8th Cir.1995) (holding that despite railroad's violation of its self-imposed speed limit, which was lower than federal law, the fact that the train was traveling within the maximum speed limit allowed by federal law thus triggers preemption of any negligence action against railroad based upon alleged excessive train speed). In accordance with these authorities, we find that Pearl's specific, individual hazard or local hazard claim is merely a cloak for his excessive train speed theory of negligence, which federal law clearly preempts.