Opinion ID: 212425
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The state and federal statutes at issue

Text: The Elams assert KCSR was negligent per se in violating Mississippi's antiblocking statute. [2] The Elams specifically allege KCSR failed to uncouple its cars so as not to obstruct traffic on Pine Crest Road and obstructed the Pine Crest Road crossing for a period in excess of five minutes at the time of the accident. Effective January 1, 1996, the ICCTA abolished the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and created a new Surface Transportation Board (STB) to regulate, inter alia, rail transportation in the United States. 49 U.S.C. § 10501(a)(1); Friberg, 267 F.3d at 442. The purpose of the ICCTA is to build[] on the deregulatory policies that have promoted growth and stability in the surface transportation sector. H.R.Rep. No. 104-311, at 93 (1995), reprinted in 1995 U.S.C.C.A.N. 793, 805. With respect to rail transportation, the ICCTA seeks to implement a [f]ederal scheme of minimal regulation for this intrinsically interstate form of transportation, and to retain only regulations that are necessary to maintain a `safety net' or `backstop' of remedies to address problems of rates, access to facilities, and industry restructuring. Id. at 93, 96, 1995 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 805, 808; see also 49 U.S.C. § 10101(2). The ICCTA creates exclusive federal regulatory jurisdiction and exclusive federal remedies. Specifically, the ICCTA provides: The jurisdiction of the [STB] over (1) transportation by rail carriers, and the remedies provided in this part with respect to rates, classifications, rules (including car service, interchange, and other operating rules), practices, routes, services, and facilities of such carriers; and (2) the construction, acquisition, operation, abandonment, or discontinuance of spur, industrial, team, switching, or side tracks, or facilities, even if the tracks are located, or intended to be located, entirely in one State, is exclusive. Except as otherwise provided in this part, the remedies provided under this part with respect to regulation of rail transportation are exclusive and preempt the remedies provided under Federal or State law. 49 U.S.C. § 10501(b). Section 10501(b) thus has two sentences: the first defining the authority of the STB in dealing with the fundamental aspects of railroad regulation, and barring others from interfering with those decisions by making the jurisdiction exclusive; and the second providing that the remedies available at the STB dealing with `rates, classifications, rules, . . . practices, routes, services, and facilities of such carriers,' are exclusive. Franks, 593 F.3d at 409-10. We refer to these two sentences as the exclusive-jurisdiction provision and the exclusive-remedies provision, respectively. The exclusive-remedies provision is the relevant part of Section 10501(b) for determining the scope of the ICCTA's preemption of state law. Id. at 410. Focusing on the word regulation in the exclusive-remedies provision, we have held that § 10501(b) expressly preempts only laws that have the effect of managing or governing rail transportation. Id. (emphasis added). [3] Similarly, [t]o the extent remedies are provided under laws that have the effect of regulating [i.e., managing or governing] rail transportation, they too are expressly preempted. Id. [4] On the other hand, § 10501(b) does not expressly preempt generally applicable state laws that have a mere remote or incidental effect on rail transportation. Id. [5] If a state law is not expressly preempted by the ICCTA, it still may be impliedly preempted if, as applied to a particular case, it has the effect of unreasonably burdening or interfering with rail transportation. Id. at 414. As a final matter, we observe Congress was particularly concerned about state economic regulation of railroads when it enacted the ICCTA. The House Report on the ICCTA states that § 10501(b) reflects a [f]ederal policy of occupying the entire field of economic regulation of the interstate rail transportation system and establishes the direct and complete pre-emption of State economic regulation of railroads. H.R.Rep. No. 104-311, at 95-96, 1995 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 807, 808. The House Report explains: [a]lthough States retain the police powers reserved by the Constitution, the Federal scheme of economic regulation and deregulation is intended to address and encompass all such regulation and to be completely exclusive. Any other construction would undermine the uniformity of Federal standards and risk the balkanization and subversion of the Federal scheme of minimal regulation. . . . Id. at 96, 1995 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 808. The preemptive effect of § 10501(b) may not be limited to state economic regulation, [6] but economic regulation is at the core of ICCTA preemption. See Friberg, 267 F.3d at 443 ([I]t appears manifest that Congress intended the ICCTA to further that exclusively federal [regulatory] effort, at least in the economic realm.); see also Fayus Enters. v. BNSF Ry. Co., 602 F.3d 444, 451 (D.C.Cir.2010) (recognizing that the core of ICCTA preemption is `economic regulation'); PCS Phosphate Co., Inc. v. Norfolk S. Corp., 559 F.3d 212, 219 (4th Cir.2009) (observing that voluntary agreements do not fall into the core of economic regulation that the ICCTA was intended to preempt).