Opinion ID: 1598843
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: the stricken allegations

Text: Chapman claims that reversible error occurred as the result of the district court's striking paragraph 9(c) and (e) of the amended petition regarding provision for indemnification against Chapman's bodily injury from a collision between Union Pacific's vehicle and a vehicle driven by an uninsured or underinsured motorist. Chapman does not refer to any federal statute or decision regarding the Federal Employers' Liability Act which supports Chapman's contention that a railroad employer's failure to provide uninsured or underinsured motorist protection for the railroad's vehicle, used in interstate commerce activity, renders the vehicle an unsafe workplace or defective as a basis for a claim under the act. We are unable to locate any federal statute or decision whereby uninsured or underinsured motorist indemnificatory protection is required for a railroad's vehicle under federal law. The statutory law of Iowa and Nebraska, the states in which Chapman drove the Union Pacific vehicle, does not require uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage whether the owner is self-insured or not. See, Iowa Code Ann. § 516A.1 (West 1988) (uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage optional); Neb.Rev.Stat. §§ 60-509.01 and 60-577 (Reissue 1988) (uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage optional). As noted, under the statutory law of Iowa and Nebraska, there is no requirement that a vehicle operated within either state must be covered by indemnificatory protection against an uninsured or underinsured motorist. Hence, Union Pacific was under no statutory duty to provide indemnification against an uninsured or underinsured motorist in collision with its vehicles. As Chapman's self-insured employer and owner of the vehicle in question, Union Pacific had the option to provide uninsured and underinsured protection on its vehicles, but made no such provision. Even if some nonstatutory duty were fashioned, to complete the allegation of causation for actionable negligence, namely, the railroad's legal obligation to inform Chapman concerning the absence of uninsured or underinsured motorist protection on its vehicle, Chapman had to plead, under principles for pleading a negligence case in Nebraska, that if the railroad had informed him about the absence of such protection, he would have obtained uninsured or underinsured motorist insurance coverage for the Union Pacific vehicle. See State Auto. & Cas. Underwriters v. Farmers Ins. Exchange, 204 Neb. 414, 282 N.W.2d 601 (1979). Cf. Reynolds v. Atlantic Coast Line, 336 U.S. 207, 69 S.Ct. 507, 93 L.Ed. 618 (1949) (complaint must allege proximate cause). Consequently, by itself, absence of uninsured or underinsured indemnificatory protection on Union Pacific's vehicle has no bearing on Chapman's negligence action against the railroad. On the one hand, if the insurance coverages were unavailable to an employee concerning an employer-owned vehicle in Chapman's case, then the alleged absence of uninsured or underinsured motorist protection is irrelevant to a negligence action under the circumstances. On the other hand, if the insurance coverages were available, Chapman failed to allege that on the railroad's notice that the vehicle in question was not protected by indemnification against damages from an uninsured or underinsured motorist, he could have obtained the insurance coverage, a sequence of events necessary to complete causation for actionable negligence. Without that complete and necessary allegation about Chapman's ability to obtain insurance coverage to protect against an uninsured and underinsured motorist, protection which Union Pacific did not supply, Chapman's allegations about nonexistence of uninsured or underinsured motorist protection for Union Pacific's vehicle was irrelevant to a negligence action. For that reason, any allegation that Union Pacific failed to provide uninsured and underinsured protection or notify Chapman regarding the absence of such protection is irrelevant to the negligence action. Therefore, the district court properly struck paragraph 9(c) and (e).