Court Opinion

ID: 9445833
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:38:42.235224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:25.054585
License: Public Domain

DUFFY, Chief Judge
(concurring).
I think we are deciding this case correctly for the reason that there is not even a scintilla of evidence to support the charge of negligence’by the defendant. However, I have considerable doubt that our decision will be upheld.
Judge SCHNACKENBERG has pointed out that in a case decided in 1948, the-Supreme Court disclaimed any intention to make “for all practical purposes, a railroad an insurer of its employees.”" That charge had been made by Judge-Major, a great Chief Judge of this Court. Griswold v. Gardner, 7 Cir., 155 F.2d 333, 334.
In my opinion there was considerable-basis for Judge Major’s conclusion. Im his dissenting opinion in Bailey v. Central Vermont Railway, Inc., 319 U.S. 350, 358, 63 S.Ct. 1062, 1066, 87 L.Ed. 1444, Mr. Justice Roberts was apparently of that view. He said: “Finally, I cannot concur in the intimation, which I think the opinion gives, (emphasis supplied) that, as Congress has seen fit not to enact a workmen’s compensation law, this court will strain the law of negligence to accord compensation where the employer is without fault.”
In any event, there has been a substantial change in the personnel of the Supreme Court since 1948. Recent cases of that Court set forth in my opinion in Gibson v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ry., 6 Cir., 246 F.2d 834, on rehearing, have just about convinced me that in any case where a trial judge submits a case to the jury under the F. E. L. Act, and the jury returns a verdict for the plaintiff, the defendant may as well pay up, irrespective of the proof on the question of negligence and causation. I am also being driven to this extreme position by the statement in the opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, 1956, 352 U.S. 500, 508, 77 S.Ct. 443, 449, 1 L.Ed.2d 493: “The burden of the employee is met, and the obligation of the employer to pay damages arises, when there is proof, even though entirely circumstantial, from which the jury may with reason make that inference.” To further emphasize the view of a majority of the Court, Mr. Justice Brennan, in a footnote, 352 U.S. at page 508, 77 S.Ct. at page 449, emphasizes that circumstantial evidence may be more certain, satisfying and persuasive than direct evidence.
*57In view of these recent decisions, I have great difficulty in visualizing a situation where an inference could not be made from some kind of circumstantial evidence, which would be said to support a verdict for the plaintiff. If I were completely convinced, it would be my duty to dissent in the case at bar. Gibson v. E. J. & E. Ry. Co., 7 Cir., 246 F.2d 834, opinion on rehearing. However, I shall await with great interest further pronouncements by the Supreme Court.