Court Opinion

ID: 9638690
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:50:48.833946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:08.880227
License: Public Domain

ROGERS, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I join Part I of the majority opinion in concluding that the jury could properly find that appellant-Deborah Fogg’s supervisors were negligent when, with knowledge that it would aggravate her physical condition, they permitted Fogg to continue her duties. I am, however, despite shared concerns about the collateral source rule, unable to join Part II of the majority opinion.
In concluding that Amtrak has manifested its intent to set-off payments under its long-term disability plan against Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) recovery, the majority ignores the prevailing analytical framework, disregards the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the federal statute (Rogers v. Missouri Pac. R.R., 352 U.S. 500, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957)), fails to distinguish a federal court decision dealing with the same disability plan (Brady v. National R.R. Passenger Corp., 714 F.Supp. 601 (D.Conn.1989)), and relies for persuasive authority on the terms of a different disability plan adopted by another railroad (Clark v. Burlington N., Inc., 726 F.2d 448 (8th Cir.1984)). Apparently, the majority, no less than other courts faced with claims under FELA, does not like the collateral source rule, and it is concerned with the result if Fogg had been allowed to introduce evidence regarding 60% of her wages and the employer required to make a double payment. In reaching a conclusion notable for its uniqueness, however, the majority has undertaken a legislative role. In my view, the court is bound, consistent with the statute as interpreted by the federal courts, to hold that Amtrak has failed explicitly to manifest its intent to set-off FELA recovery from payments under its disability benefit plan, and that in view of the overwhelming weight of authority, cannot be deemed to have done so by providing for reduction for “workmen’s compensation or similar law.” Accordingly, the trial judge erred in granting Amtrak’s motion in limine and excluding evidence regarding *79560% of appellant’s future lost wages.1
Without explanation the majority ignores the requirement imposed by courts interpreting 45 U.S.C. § 55 (1988) that, in order for offset to occur, the employer must explicitly manifest its intent, through the express language of the disability plan, to indemnify itself against FELA liability.2 This requirement is longstanding and the policy considerations have been long acknowledged by the federal courts. See, e.g., Blake v. Delaware & Hudson Ry., 484 F.2d 204, 205-07 (2d Cir.1973) (and cases cited). In a concurring opinion in Blake, Judge Friendly castigated the collateral source rule, noting that it had come under increasing criticism, but acknowledged that "[w]hat constrains me nevertheless to concur [in holding that double payment is required by the employer since the employer had not manifested its intent that the benefits were in the form of an indemnity] is that here we are governed not by federal common law but by statute.” Id. at 207 (Friendly, J., concurring) (citing Bangor & Aroostook R. Co. v. Jones, 36 F.2d 886 (1st Cir.1929)). But he further pointed out that:
If the railroads wish to avoid the harsh result reached by the district court, they can accomplish this by specific provision in the collective bargaining agreement. Short of this the remedy is for Congress — which would do still better to repeal the outmoded FELA and substitute a liberal plan of workmen’s compensation, as it did in 1927 for longshoremen and harbor workers....
Id. (citations omitted).3
Requiring the collective bargaining agreement or the benefit plan itself to make explicit whether the benefit is a fringe not subject to offset, or an indemnity subject to FELA offset, serves a dual purpose beyond adhering to Congressional intent. It gives the employer some control over the size of the benefit plan that will be available to its employees. It also places employees and potential employees on notice of the sources of income they will receive in the event of injury, and whether they will receive supplement payments under a benefit plan in addition to recovery under FELA. See Clark, supra, 726 F.2d at 451. Requiring express language in the benefit plan eliminates any ambiguity, avoids unnecessary litigation, and enables all affected parties to take appropriate action.
Had the majority followed federal precedent it would have had no choice but to conclude that Amtrak had not explicitly manifested its intent.4 Amtrak’s long-term *796disability plan explicitly provides for reduction of benefits paid on account of the Social Security Act, the Federal Railroad Retirement Act, salary or wage continuance plan or “workmen’s compensation or similar law.” The plan does not expressly provide for offset for payments made on account of FELA. No mention is made of FELA, and, hence, offset should have been denied.5
The disability plan’s reduction for payments made “under or on account of any workmen’s compensation or similar law,” does not, as the majority contends, manifest Amtrak’s intent to indemnify itself against FELA liability. Majority opinion at 793. The majority quotes, but then ignores, the observation by the Supreme Court in Rogers v. Missouri Pac. R.R., supra, 352 U.S. at 509, 77 S.Ct. at 450, that “Congress has not seen fit to substitute a [workmen’s compensation] scheme” for FELA, majority opinion at 793 (and indeed has amended FELA to strengthen it, 352 U.S. at 508-09, 77 S.Ct. at 450),6 Rather, the majority concludes that FELA is similar in some respects to workmen’s compensation, and therefore Amtrak must have had FELA in mind in providing for offset for laws similar to workmen’s compensation. In reaching this conclusion, the majority ignores the overwhelming weight of authority.7
FELA is not, as the majority asserts, “similar in function and design to workers’ compensation.” Majority opinion at 793. While both FELA and workmen’s compensation statutes have a broad remedial purpose, see Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 181-82, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 1030-31, 93 L.Ed. 1282 (1949), the similarities end there. The function of workmen’s compensation statutes, unlike FELA, is to make the employer an insurer of the employee’s safety regardless of fault by allowing the employee to recover whenever he or she is injured in the course of the employment. See Gallose v. Long Island R.R., 878 F.2d 80, 85 (2d Cir.1989) (“FELA was never intended to hold an employer absolutely liable for workplace injuries.”); Conway v. Consolidated Rail, 720 F.2d 221, 223 (1st Cir. *7971983) (“It is black letter law that an [sic] FELA plaintiff is not entitled to absolute security; the act, unlike workmen’s compensation statutes, does not make the employer an insurer.”) (emphasis added), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 937, 104 S.Ct. 1911, 80 L.Ed.2d 459 (1984); Padgett v. Southern Ry., 396 F.2d 303, 306 (6th Cir.1968) (FELA “does not contemplate absolute elimination of all dangers, but only the elimination of those dangers which could be removed by reasonable care on the part of the employer”). Under workmen’s compensation statutes an employee is automatically entitled to benefits upon being injured on the job. FELA’s function, by contrast, is not to provide the employee with such absolute security on the workplace, but only with freedom from those hazards that are the fault (in some respect) of the employer:
The [FELA] was enacted because Congress was dissatisfied with the common-law duty of the master to his servant. The statute supplants that duty with the far more drastic duty of paying damages for injury or death at work due in whole or in part to the employer’s negligence. The employer is stripped of his common-law defenses and for practical purposes the inquiry in these cases today rarely presents more than the single question whether negligence of the employer played any part, however small, in the injury or death which is the subject of the suit.
Rogers, supra, 352 U.S. at 507-08, 77 S.Ct. at 449; See S.Rep. No. 460, 60th Cong., 1st Sess. 2-3 (1908).
In addition, FELA’s design is completely different from the procedures which exist under workmen’s compensation schemes. The administration of these schemes are usually in the hands of an administrative body, and rules of procedure and evidence are relaxed. See 1A A. Larson, The Law OF WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION § 1.10 (1990). Workmen’s compensation schemes compute the appropriate level of compensation by a rigid formula which takes into account only two factors: the severity of the disability and the economic lc ,s incurred as a result of the injury. See 2 A. Larson, supra, Ch. X (1989). Recovery for pain and suffering is generally not allowed. Id. Contrary to the majority’s observation, majority opinion at [15], therefore, even for “practical purposes” FELA and workmen’s compensation are not the same: “[i]n many cases, compensation awards are less than jury awards would be in a comparable situation.” Murphy, Sidetracking the FELA: The Railroads’ Property Damage Claims, 69 Minn. L.Rev. 349 (1985). Consequently, it is difficult to discern a rational basis for the majority’s conclusion that FELA is similar law to workmen’s compensation, particularly in view of long-standing federal precedent decrying the collateral source rule as applied to FELA and urging Congress to replace it with a workmen’s compensation law. See, e.g., Blake, supra, 484 F.2d at 206 (and cases cited).
Finally, there is nothing to support the majority’s conclusion that Amtrak’s intent to treat its disability plan as an indemnity is evidenced by the plan’s provision for a reduction for benefits paid out under a “salary or wage continuance plan.” According to the majority, this provision indicates that Amtrak treats its disability plan as equivalent to a salary or wage continuance plan, and since salaries and wages are not in the form of “fringe benefits,” but ordinary compensation, the disability plan is not a “fringe,” but an indemnity. Majority opinion at 793. The record reflects no “equivalence” between the disability plan and a salary or wage plan. Nor is there evidence that under a disability plan and a salary or wage plan the employee would receive the same compensation. In addition, the disability plan is based on the employee being disabled, while (in the absence of evidence to the contrary) a wage or salary plan is based on different assumptions and contains no such requirement.
In sum, the majority has rejected longstanding precedent in favor of speculation about Amtrak’s intent.8 Its decision has *798the potential for upsetting expectations under existing employment contracts based on long-settled federal law. Accordingly, I dissent from Part II of the majority opinion.

. I agree with the majority that Fogg has abandoned any claim with respect to medical benefits since the medical bills were never moved into evidence and the trial judge did not exclude testimony regarding these benefits. Majority opinion at 791 n. 8.

. See, e.g., Folkestad v. Burlington N., Inc., 813 F.2d 1377, 1383 (9th Cir.1987) ("no setoff of benefits can flow from the statute in the absence of a stipulation that the insurance benefits paid to an injured employee are intended to indemnify the employer for FELA liability”); Clark v. Burlington N., Inc., supra, 726 F.2d at 451 (allowing for set-off only where plan "explicitly provide[d] that money paid or payable under the FELA decreases the benefits allowable”); Brady, supra, 714 F.Supp. at 602 ("The specific provisions of the benefits plan may be determinative of the issue” of offset).

. "[Tjaking the cue” from Judge Friendly, a number of railroads have since 1973 expressly provided for setoff of FELA payments in their collective bargaining agreements. Folkestad, supra, 813 F.2d at 1383; Clark, supra, 726 F.2d at 451 n. 3.

.This was the conclusion reached by the court in Brady, supra, 714 F.Supp. at 603, upon examining the same plan at issue here with regard to an employee also not covered by a collective bargaining agreement. The majority rejects Brady with little explanation, stating only that Amtrak’s plan "is most naturally read” to the contrary. Majority opinion at 793. In Brady, the court held that Amtrak had not manifest its intent to offset the long term disability payments against a FELA verdict. The court examined the terms of Amtrak’s plan, which specifically offsets payments made under "any workmen’s compensation or similar law,” as well as payments under the Social Security Act, and the Railroad Retirement Act, but makes no reference to FELA. By negative implication, the court held, distinguishing Clark, supra, that since no mention was made of FELA, and the policy was drafted according to Amtrak’s wishes, Amtrak must not have intended to offset FELA payments. Id. at 604. The majority does not, and, in fairness, cannot identify the source of its different reading of the same plan.

. If Amtrak intended to offset FELA benefits, nothing prevented them from taking the cue from Judge Friendly and others, and making that explicit in the plan itself, as other railroads have done. At oral argument, counsel for Amtrak could not explain why Amtrak had not inserted in its benefit plan a statement which would reduce FELA recovery from payments made under the plan. Amtrak’s failure to do so when they were on notice that there was a problem and had the power to insert such a provision can only lead to the inference that they did not intend to provide for FELA offset. See Brady, supra, 714 F.Supp. at 604 (“[i]t is difficult to imagine that the railroad [Amtrak], whose familiarity with the FELA must be presumed, would employ such an ambiguous device to protect itself from double liability under the FELA. If it intended that the FELA payments be set off against the benefits provided for in the plan, it should have said so in the plan”).

. The full Rogers quote, which bears repeating is:
Cognizant of the duty to effectuate the intention of Congress to secure the right to a jury determination, this Court is vigilant to exercise its power of review in any case where it appears the litigants have been improperly deprived of a determination. Some say [FELA] has shortcomings and would prefer a workmen’s compensation scheme. The fact that Congress has not seen fit to substitute that scheme cannot relieve this Court of its obligation to effectuate the present congressional intention by granting certiorari to correct instances of improper administration of the Act and to prevent its erosion by narrow and niggardly construction.
352 U.S. at 509, 77 S.Ct. at 450 (footnote omitted).

.The majority relies on Clark, supra, 726 F.2d at 451 n. 2, to suggest that the court there held that FELA serves as the workers’ compensation statute for railroad workers. See majority at 793 (quoting Burlington Northern's long-term disability plan, which provided for reductions for benefits "by any amount paid or payable to the employee under any Workmen’s Compensation ... or similar law (including, but not limited to, loss of income payments under the Federal Employer's Liability Act”) (emphasis supplied by majority opinion). The court in Clark made no such holding. Rather, the policy there expressly provided for offset for FELA recovery and, as a result, the court held that Burlington Northern had made its intent clear. The majority here is, in effect, relying on the fact that Burlington Northern interpreted FELA in its own plan to be a "similar law" to workmen’s compensation. This has no relevance here where the issue is not Burlington Northern’s interpretation of its plan, but whether Amtrak has explicitly manifested its intent.

. Indeed, Amtrak’s listing in its benefits plan of federal statutes under which payments will be deducted, see majority opinion at 792, is, under the majority’s interpretation of “or similar law," *798superfluous since any recovery for an injury will be deemed in the nature of an indemnity. The majority concedes, moreover, that it relies for its statutory interpretation on "apparent legislative intent,” majority opinion at n. 14, with nary a reference to the legislative history of FELA.