Court Opinion

ID: 9453845
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:25:49.863516+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:49.819748
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(dissenting) :
I dissent.
However relaxed and liberal may be those standards whereby a jury is permitted to find an employer railroad has been negligent under the FELA as interpreted by the Supreme Court and this court, I can find in the record of this case no evidence of employer negligence to justify submitting this case to the jury.
In order to take an FELA case to the jury, the employee must introduce some proof from which the jury may with reason infer that the negligence of the employer played some part, however small, in the injury or death which is the subject of the suit. Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 508, 77 S.Ct. 443, 12 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957). Certainly, if the employee fails to introduce any evidence from which the jury could reasonably infer that there was any negligence on the part of the railroad, the employer is entitled to a directed verdict or judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Kuberski v. New York Central Railroad Company, 359 F.2d 90, 95 (2d Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 386 U.S. 1036, 87 S.Ct. 1475, 18 L.Ed. 600 (1967).
Eaton’s theory is that he injured his knee in climbing out of a pit approximately 35 inches deep because the railroad failed to provide a safe place for him to work in that it did not provide steps or a ladder and allowed grease and oil to accumulate in the pit so that he could not crawl out. The crucial issue on appeal is whether Eaton presented any evidence from which the jury could reasonably infer that the railroad failed to provide a safe place to work.
Plaintiff introduced evidence that there were no steps or ladders in the pits, that pits in another of the railroad’s shops had steps and that some employees had complained because there were no steps. He introduced evidence that he could not crawl out of the pit because it was covered with grease and oil and if his clothing became dirty he would be subjected to the risk of a fire when he used his acetylene torch.
On cross-examination Eaton testified that whenever there were men in the pit taking down axle caps they sat on wooden blocks and he would use one of the these blocks to step out of the pit. When the men were taking down axle caps the blocks were removed from the pit by the foreman and left lying “all over the floor.” Before climbing out of the pit on the day of his accident Eaton did not ask for one of these blocks to step out of the pit. There was no testimony that this method of egress, which Eaton preferred, was not available to him on the day of the accident or that it was not an adequate and non-hazardous means of leaving the pit.
Since there is nothing in the record from which the jury could reasonably infer that these wooden blocks, lying all over the floor, were not readily accessible or that they were not a safe means of egress, Eaton has not met his burden of proof of employer negligence, as minimal as it is in an FELA case, and should not have prevailed. Kuberski v. New York Central Railroad Company, 359 F.2d at 93-94.
It could hardly be argued, and indeed it was not argued by plaintiff, that the railroad was under a duty to see that the wooden blocks were in the pits at all times so that an impatient Eaton could exit from the pit instantly. However, if plaintiff had introduced some evidence that blocks on the platform were not readily accessible, it would have been proper to submit this question to the jury in an FELA case. But on the record before me, I can only conclude that in order to save a few minutes of time, for which the railroad was paying him in any event, Eaton elected to get *744out of the pit without the assistance of a wooden block.
The inescapable conclusion is that Eaton failed to introduce any evidence that the means of egress from the pit provided was either unsafe or not readily accessible. The trial judge should have directed a verdict for the defendant. As he failed to do so, we should reverse and direct that judgment be entered for the defendant. Eaton is not entitled to recover $27,000 merely because he incurred an injury.