Opinion ID: 2551157
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of the Right of Refusal Policy Injected the Doctrine into the Case

Text: Petitioner asserts that evidence of the Decedent's decision not to invoke his Right of Refusal warranted the cautionary instruction because the jury may have concluded that the Decedent assumed the risks of his employment because he did not refuse to perform the job under the particular conditions, i.e. the energized line. Respondent asserts that the evidence of the Decedent's decision not to opt out of the assignment, or request that the electricity be shut down from the area of track involved is evidence of contributory negligence, not assumption of risk because the evidence shows that safer alternatives, besides quitting, were available. It is undisputed that employees of Amtrak may invoke the Right of Refusal policy, which was offered into evidence through the testimony of Gerard Nangle, the Director of Electrical Traction Maintenance. According to Mr. Nangle, any member of the engineering department ha[d] the right to refuse work that they [felt was] unsafe. The intermediate appellate court held that evidence describing Amtrak's Right of Refusal policy did not expressly or implicitly inject[ ] assumption of the risk into the trial. Collins, 187 Md.App. at 314, 978 A.2d at 833. The court's reasoning on that point follows: Contrary to Collins'[s] contention, Amtrak's reference to the Right of Refusal was not for the purpose of arguing that the Decedent had the right to refuse to work under an energized wire, thereby implying that he voluntarily accepted working under a known dangerous condition. Cf. Taylor, 787 F.2d at 1316 (The employee who enters the workplace for a routine assignment in compliance with the orders and directions of his employer or its supervising agents, who by such entry incurs risks not extraordinary in scope, is not contributorily negligent, but rather is engaging in an assumption of the risk.). [18] Instead, Amtrak used the Right of Refusal to show a safer alternative to conducting the catenary alignment readings under an energized wire, namely, doing the same job under a de-energized wire. Working under an energized line was not necessary for the Decedent and the crew to perform the alignment readings. In fact, about 99% of the time the crew performed the readings under a de-energized wire, and there was no advantage in terms of electrical engineering practices to taking readings under an energized line versus a de-energized line. Thus, under the circumstances of this case, the Right of Refusal was used to suggest a reasonable alternative,  besides quitting or refusing to perform the task in an unsafe way,  see Fashauer, 57 F.3d. at 1280 (emphasis added), thereby raising the issue of contributory negligence, not assumption of the risk. Collins, 187 Md.App. at 313, 978 A.2d at 833 (first emphasis added). The intermediate appellate court concluded that Amtrak did not offer the evidence of the policy for the purpose of supporting a forbidden defense. In our view, however, it is not purpose, but the impact of the evidence and argument of counsel on the fact finder that was and is at issue. [19] See Jenkins v. Union Pac. R. Co., 22 F.3d 206, 212 (9th Cir.1994) (noting [i]t is the evidence itself, not the defendant's characterization of it, that drives the analysis). The intermediate appellate court agreed with Respondent that evidence of the Decedent's decision that the work could be completed safely under energized wires demonstrated contributory negligence because it showed that safer alternatives, besides quitting, were available to Mr. Collins, and that he acted unreasonably in not pursing them. To the contrary, the jury could have found that the same evidence was suggestive of Mr. Collins's knowing acceptance of a danger that relieved Amtrak of its duty, thereby appealing to assumption of the risk. See Vandaveer v. Norfolk & W.R. Co., 78 Ill.App.2d 186, 222 N.E.2d 897 (1966) (ruling that evidence of an employee's ability to request another job, could have led a jury to infer that the employee assumed the risks associated with her current job and so an instruction was not improper). It is the potential impact on the jury, and not the proffered, or subsequently divined, purpose of the evidence that should govern whether a cautionary instruction is given. Respondent's argument and the Court of Special Appeals's analysis are not persuasive because both fashion an under inclusive net to catch the instances where an assumption of the risk instruction is needed. Testimony solicited by Respondent from Mr. Nangle immediately after he summarized the Right of Refusal policy, focused on the Decedent's knowledge of policy, the extent of the safety briefing just prior to executing the assignment, and the decision of the crew to do the job under energized wire. The juxtaposition of the evidence of the `opt-out' policy with the repeated testimony related to Mr. Collins's knowledge and experience in his particular line of work evokes elements of the assumption of the risk defense and not careless deviation from the standard of care. The Court of Special Appeals's consideration of the Right of Refusal Policy and that court's conclusion that it could not have raised an impermissible inference of assumption of the risk is also inconsistent with its holding in a similar case, CSX Transp., Inc. v. Richard Bickerstaff, et al., 187 Md.App. 187, 978 A.2d 760 (2009), in which a cautionary instruction was given and upheld on appeal. [20] In Bickerstaff, the Court of Special Appeals identified evidence presented at trial by the appellant employer that supported the trial judge's decision to give a cautionary instruction, namely making choices to work at a particular rail yard, to mount and dismount moving equipment at a particular speed, [and] to take on a job involving more walking.... The court concluded: The evidence adduced and argument presented concerning appellees' choice of work or work site thus support the inference that appellees voluntarily and knowingly accepted the dangers inherent in working for appellant when they performed their jobs. Such evidence and argument increased the risk that, in the absence of an instruction, the jury would improperly infer that appellees had assumed the risk in performing their work. Therefore, the subject jury charge adequately, and quite appropriately, distinguished between conduct constituting contributory negligence and conduct constituting assumption of risk. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in giving a jury instruction on assumption of risk. Bickerstaff, 187 Md.App. at 228, 978 A.2d at 784 (emphasis added). In the instant case, the Court of Special Appeals went beyond the evidence of the Right of Refusal policy to divine a purpose for which that evidence was offered and then to declare that purpose to be wholly in alignment with the railroad management's proffered reason for offering the evidence, namely to bolster a contributory negligence defense. The intermediate appellate court was satisfied in Bickerstaff, however, that evidence of choice of work site, analogous to the choice to work under an energized line despite recourse to the Right of Refusal Policy, was sufficient to warrant a clarifying, cautionary instruction. The Court of Special Appeals offered no persuasive reason in the instant case to distinguish its conclusion here from the one reached in Bickerstaff. In the present case, the Court of Special Appeals also held that the evidence presented at trial regarding the reasons and presumptions about why decedent went onto the roof of the Cat Car, tended to show that the Decedent departed from the standard of care and acted unreasonably under the circumstances, thus implicating the defense of contributory negligence and not assumption of the risk. Collins, 187 Md.App. at 315, 978 A.2d at 834 (citation omitted). In its closing statement to the jury, Amtrak highlighted Mr. Collins's knowledge of the dangers of the energized catenary system and his choice to mount the roof to tie down the pantograph. This argument, however, is consistent with the theory of assumption of risk. In light of the conflicting evidence, it is unclear whether the Decedent was acting with the discretion that is central to the intermediate appellate court's reasoning and conclusion that assumption of the risk was not implicated. It is unknown exactly why Collins went on the roof, but physical evidence suggests he was in a position to stomp on the car roof thereby alerting the operator that he was tying-down the pantograph. The jury necessarily was confronted with conflicting evidence on precisely why the power remained on in this particular circumstance, especially in light of repeated testimony that this kind of routine maintenance was performed under a de-energized line 99% of the time. Petitioner elicited testimony at trial tending to cast Amtrak as directing the crew explicitly, through a conscious decision, to work under an energized line. Respondent, however, contends that it was the crew's decision to do the alignment reading under energized wire. One of the crew members, George Breader, testified that it was the crew foreman, Thomas Boone, who made the decision to do the reading under an energized line, and the crew agreed with that decision. At trial, an Amtrak official testified that an advantage to keeping the power on was that when you remove power, trains won't run on certain areas. One of the crew members also testified that [t]he advantage [to keeping the power on] is that the less people that have to be involved[,] ... the less time that it requires. A reasonable jury could have inferred from this evidence that Amtrak directed Mr. Collins to `accept a dangerous condition' of employment and that there was a benefit to the company in leaving the power on during the assignment. According to the Tenth Circuit, when the evidence could support either contributory negligence or assumption of the risk, instructions which only define contributory negligence are not sufficient to prevent the jury from applying assumption of the risk. Sauer v. Burlington Northern R.R. Co., 106 F.3d 1490, 1493 (10th Cir.1996) (involving a FELA case where the instruction did address assumption of the risk and its inapplicability, albeit without mentioning the defense by name); see e.g., Norfolk S. Ry. Co. v. Thomas, 258 Va. 516, 522 S.E.2d 620 (1999) (noting that the same evidence may be relevant to both defenses). Here, Amtrak's theory of the case was that Mr. Collins elected to encounter the known risks of working in the vicinity of an energized wire. The jury could have concluded that Mr. Collins was carrying out continuing orders from Amtrak to tie down the pantograph as a matter of course. This interpretation of the evidence could have led to a finding of contributory negligence or assumption of risk.