Court Opinion

ID: 9404929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-26 19:01:05.82579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:18.115389
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13298    Document: 37-1      Date Filed: 06/26/2023   Page: 1 of 7

                                                [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-13298
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

       JAMES OHL,
       as Natural Parent of Jacob Ohl,
       JACOB OHL,
       KATINA COOK,
       as Natural Parent of Jacob Ohl,
                                                    Plaintiﬀs-Appellants,
       versus
       CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC.,

                                                    Defendant-Appellee.

                           ____________________
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       2                     Opinion of the Court                22-13298

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-01446-SCJ
                          ____________________

       Before ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, and BLACK, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Jacob Ohl, James Ohl, and Katina Cook (Appellants) appeal
       the district court’s grant of summary judgment to CSX Transpor-
       tation, Inc. (CSX), in their lawsuit alleging CSX was negligent when
       a train it owned and operated struck and injured Jacob. Appellants
       contend the district court misapplied precedent and failed to con-
       strue the record evidence in their favor. After review, we aﬃrm the
       district court.
                              I. BACKGROUND
              On March 2, 2017, 17-year-old Jacob was in the Lilburn City
       Park in Lilburn, Georgia. While wandering around the park, he
       came upon a neighboring property he described as a “big concrete
       area that look[ed] abandoned.” After walking around the concrete
       area for some time, Jacob decided to enter the adjacent railroad
       property and began walking east along the tracks.
              Jacob had not been on the railroad property before and did
       not seek CSX’s permission to enter. However, he knew the railroad
       tracks were active, and he acknowledged there was room for him
       to walk alongside the tracks. Nevertheless, he decided to walk on
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       22-13298                   Opinion of the Court                                 3

       the tracks wearing noise-cancelling earbuds and he was not looking
       for a train.
              About an hour later, a 17.8 million-pound train going ap-
       proximately 45 miles per hour, slightly under the speed limit for
       that area, approached Jacob from around a curve. Jacob was in
       Conductor Clifton Martin’s line of sight for 695 feet, or a little over
       ten seconds before impact. Engineer Derrick Marshall, who was in
       the train cabin with Martin, testiﬁed that when the train came
       around the curve, he was looking at the locomotive screens to
       check speed and braking. Martin testiﬁed that he saw something
       on the tracks, and notiﬁed Marshall, but Martin did not realize the
       object was a person. 1 Marshall then looked and saw Jacob, and im-
       mediately sounded the horn for about two seconds before impact.
       The train ran over and severed Jacob’s legs. Marshall applied the
       emergency brakes, and the train stopped after traveling another
       3,175 feet.
                                    II. DISCUSSION
              In granting summary judgment, the district court ﬁrst deter-
       mined no reasonable jury could ﬁnd CSX or its employees dis-
       played willful or wanton misconduct towards Jacob, who was a
       trespasser when he was struck. While this conclusion alone was

       1 There is a dispute whether Jacob was walking on the tracks or lying on the
       tracks. For summary judgment purposes, we accept Jacob’s version of the
       facts in which he testified he was walking on the tracks. See Jones v. UPS Ground
       Freight, 683 F.3d 1283, 1291-92 (11th Cir. 2012) (stating we construe all facts in
       favor of the non-moving party).
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                    22-13298

       enough to grant summary judgment to CSX on the negligence
       claim, the district court also addressed the parties’ other argu-
       ments. The court concluded (1) the last clear chance doctrine did
       not preclude summary judgment; (2) summary judgment was
       proper under the doctrine of avoidable consequences; (3) Jacob as-
       sumed the risk of walking on live railroad tracks; (4) and CSX was
       entitled to summary judgment under a theory of comparative neg-
       ligence.
               As to the issues of the last clear chance doctrine, avoidable
       consequences, assumption of risk, and comparative negligence, af-
       ter conducting a de novo review, we conclude the district court did
       not err in its well-reasoned order. See Hegel v. First Liberty Ins. Corp.,
       778 F.3d 1214, 1219 (11th Cir. 2015) (reviewing a district court’s
       grant of summary judgment de novo). Thus, we aﬃrm the district
       court on those issues.
              We write separately on the issue of willful and wanton mis-
       conduct. Appellants contend the district court applied the wrong
       legal standard—willful and wanton—to CSX’s conduct. They as-
       sert that under established Georgia precedent and federally man-
       dated operating rules, Marshall and Martin had a duty to anticipate
       pedestrians on or near the CSX right-of-way in the Atlanta metro-
       politan area, and had a duty of due care to prevent injuring them.
       Appellants contend the CSX operating rules compelled by federal
       law required Marshall and Martin to sound the horn immediately
       and continuously until Jacob cleared the tracks, and compelled
       them to always “take the safe course.” Appellants further assert the
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       22-13298                Opinion of the Court                            5

       district court erred in construing record evidence in favor of CSX,
       and ignoring contrary evidence of CSX’s negligence and causation.
               Under Georgia law, “[a] lawful possessor of land owes no
       duty of care to a trespasser except to refrain from causing a willful
       or wanton injury.” O.C.G.A. § 51-3-3. Appellants do not meaning-
       fully dispute that Jacob was a trespasser. They argue instead that
       once the presence of a trespasser is known, the duty shifts to one
       of ordinary care, and that it is willful or wanton not to exercise or-
       dinary care once a trespasser’s presence is known or should be
       known. However, the cases Appellants cite for this proposition per-
       tain to licensees, not trespassers. See, e.g., Harbin v. Ritch, 876 S.E.2d
       737, 739-40 (Ga. Ct. App. 2022); Sterchi Bros. Stores, Inc. v. Podhouser,
       6 S.E.2d 92, 94-95 (Ga. Ct. App. 1939). And the railroad cases cited
       for this proposition involve individuals who were injured while us-
       ing established pedestrian crossings—where “the general presence
       of trespassers habitually crossing at a particular spot is known to
       the railroad and has continued without the disapproval of the rail-
       road.” Lawson v. S.R. Co., 366 S.E.2d 801, 803 (Ga. Ct. App. 1988).
       On appeal, Appellants point to no evidence that the section of rail-
       road tracks where Jacob was injured was an established pedestrian
       crossing or an area where the general presence of trespassers was
       known. Appellants contend the spot is in the Atlanta metropolitan
       area, but that is not enough to support a ﬁnding of an implied ease-
       ment or prior knowledge of pedestrians speciﬁcally where Jacob
       was struck. See id.
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13298

              Additionally, the CSX operating rules do not change the will-
       ful and wanton standard under Georgia law. The operating rules
       cited by Jacob relate to the circumstances under which an employee
       should use the train horn as a warning. Those rules do not change
       the fact that Jacob was a trespasser on CSX’s tracks and that CSX
       owed no duty of care “except to refrain from causing a willful or
       wanton injury.” O.C.G.A. § 51-3-3.
               Appellants contend Marshall and Martin should have com-
       menced blowing the horns, ringing the bell, reducing the throttle
       to idle, and setting their brakes as soon a Jacob came into view,
       which was at least ten seconds prior to reaching Jacob. However,
       no reasonable jury could ﬁnd that CSX acted with willful or wan-
       ton misconduct. The undisputed evidence shows that just before
       the accident, the train came around a curve, and Jacob was not in
       the train’s line of sight until it was 695 feet away from him. Alt-
       hough the train’s crew saw an object in the train’s path after it
       rounded the curve, they did not recognize the object was a person
       for a few seconds. Once the crew recognized the object was a per-
       son, they sounded the train’s horn. While Appellants argue Mar-
       shall and Martin did not react “immediately” and there was a delay
       before blowing the horn, the delay was a matter of seconds. Even
       assuming the seconds-long delay would allow for a ﬁnding of neg-
       ligence, mere negligence is insuﬃcient to show willful or wanton
       behavior. See Pollard v. Todd, 8 S.E.2d 566, 571 (Ga. Ct. App. 1940);
       Pressley v. Atlanta & West Point RR Co., 172 S.E. 731, 733-34 (Ga. Ct.
       App. 1934). As the district court concluded, “[b]ecause Jacob was a
       trespasser when he was struck and was owed only a duty not to be
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       22-13298                   Opinion of the Court                                 7

       caused willful or wanton injury, a jury could not reasonably ﬁnd in
       favor of [Appellants].” 2
              Georgia law does not make CSX liable for Jacob’s injuries.
       The district court did not err in granting summary judgment in fa-
       vor of CSX.
               AFFIRMED.

       2 While Appellants contend the district court erroneously construed conflict-
       ing evidence in favor of CSX, and ignored contrary testimony, Appellants do
       not specify what conflicting evidence was construed in CSX’s favor, or point
       to testimony the district court ignored. Despite Appellants’ arguments that
       the district court chose to view the facts in a light unfavorable to Jacob by
       including that his parents divorced when he was “very young,” that he was
       “stressed out,” and that Jacob was “bored” on the “third day of his truancy,”
       these facts are irrelevant and could also be viewed as the district court recount-
       ing that Jacob was a 17-year old with a sympathetic history.