Court Opinion

ID: 9421542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:58:49.050377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:31.044975
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Burton, and Mr. Justice Whit-taker join,
dissenting.
I share the view of the Court that under existing law a cause of action for wrongful death does not lie on principles of unseaworthiness, and that therefore respondent’s liability for the death caused by this unfortunate accident depends entirely on the Jones Act, 41 Stat. 1007, 46 U. S. C. § 688, which incorporates the provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U. S. C. §§ 51-60, and thereby reflects the principles of negligence upon which the FELA is explicitly based.
The District Court granted exoneration to respondent upon findings that the accident was not attributable to negligence of any kind on its part, and in particular that respondent was not negligent in carrying the kerosene signal lantern, which ignited the fumes from the petroleum products on the surface of the river, at a height of three feet in a part of the river which had never been considered a danger area. Although the District Court found that the accident was traceable in fact to respondent’s violation of a Coast Guard regulation, 33 CFR § 80.16 (h), which required a white light to be carried *442at a minimum height of eight feet above the water,1 the court held that this violation did not of itself give rise to liability in negligence because the sole purpose of the statute authorizing the regulation, 30 Stat. 102, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 157, was to guard against collisions and not to prevent the type of accident which here resulted.
This holding, as the Court seems to recognize, was in accord with the familiar principle in the common law of negligence that injuries resulting from violations of a statutory duty do not give rise to liability unless of the kind the statute was designed to prevent. Indeed that principle, which is but an aspect of the general rule of negligence law that injuries in order to be actionable must be within the risk of harm which a defendant’s conduct has created, see Seavey, Principles of Torts, 56 Harv. L. Rev. 72, 90-92 (1942), was established as long ago as 1874 by a leading English case, Gorris v. Scott, L. R. 9 Ex. 125, and has been followed in this country almost without exception. Restatement, Torts, § 286; Prosser, Torts (2d ed. 1955), § 34; Lowndes, Civil Liability Created by Criminal Legislation, 16 Minn. L. Rev. 361, 372-377 (1932); cf. The Eugene F. Moran, 212 U. S. 466, 476 (under admiralty law).
*443The Court neither casts doubt on the District Court’s finding that respondent was not negligent in carrying the tug’s lantern at three feet above the water surface nor disputes that the sole purpose of the Coast Guard regulation was to guard against the risk of collision, but it nevertheless decides that violation of the regulation in and of itself rendered the respondent liable for all injuries flowing from it. This holding is said to follow from the decisions of this Court in a series of FELA cases based on violations of the Safety Appliance Act, 27 Stat. 531, as amended, 45 U. S. C. §§ 1-16, and the Boiler Inspection Act, 36 Stat. 913, as amended, 45 U. S. C. §§ 22-34. These decisions, as the Court here properly states, have created under the FELA an absolute liability- — that is, a liability “without regard to negligence” — for injuries resulting from violations of the other Acts. From this, the Court concludes that there is no reason not to extend this absolute liability to cases based on the violation of a statutory duty which are brought under the Jones Act.
This conclusion I cannot share. A reading of the cases relied upon by the Court demonstrates beyond dispute that the reasons underlying those decisions have no application in the context of this Coast Guard regulation and the Jones Act. It follows that liability can be impressed on respondent only because of negligence, the theory upon which the Jones Act is founded.
In the course of its development of an absolute liability under the FELA for injuries traceable to violations of the Safety Appliance Act or the Boiler Inspection Act, the Court has faced two distinct problems. First, was it necessary for the plaintiff to show that the violation of either of these safety statutes was due to negligence? The answer has uniformly been “no.” St. Louis, Iron Mountain & So. R. Co. v. Taylor, 210 U. S. 281; San Antonio & *444A. P. R. Co. v. Wagner, 241 U. S. 476; Minneapolis & St. L. R. Co. v. Gotschall, 244 U. S. 66; Southern R. Co. v. Lunsford, 297 U. S. 398; Lilly v. Grand Trunk R. Co., 317 U. S. 481. Second, was the defendant’s liability for the injuries suffered limited to those within the character of the risks which these statutes were designed to eliminate? Except for St. Louis & S. F. R. Co. v. Conarty, 238 U. S. 243, which stands alone and has never since been followed, the answer here has also been “no.” Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Layton, 243 U. S. 617; Davis v. Wolfe, 263 U. S. 239; Swinson v. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co., 294 U. S. 529; Brady v. Terminal Railroad Assn., 303 U. S. 10.
The rationale for these earlier cases is not entirely clear, but after a good deal of uncertainty it finally became established in 1948 and 1949 that railway employees suffering injuries in consequence of a violation of safety regulations found in or promulgated under either the Safety Appliance Act or the Boilei Inspection Act could maintain an action under the FELA without reference to the law of negligence. Urie v. Thompson, 337 U. S. 163; O’Donnell v. Elgin, J. & E. R. Co., 338 U. S. 384; Carter v. Atlanta & St. A. B. R. Co., 338 U. S. 430. As a result of these cases, the scope of § 1 of the FELA, 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 51,, has been enlarged by making compensable not only injuries “resulting in whole or in part from the negligence” of the carrier, but also those resulting from violation of the two regulatory Acts, so that in effect these Acts give rise, through the medium of the FELA, to a “non-negligence” (O’Donnell, supra, at 391) cause.of action. Referring to the nature of that kind of action this Court said in Carter, supra (at p. 434):
“Sometimes that violation [of the Safety Appliance Act] is described as ‘negligence per se’ . . . ; but we *445have made clear in the O’Donnell case that that term is a confusing label for what is simply a violation of an absolute duty.
“Once the violation is established, only causal relation is in issue. And Congress has directed liability if the injury resulted 'in whole or in part' from defendant’s negligence or its violation of the Safety Appliance Act.” (Italics added.)
These cases then certainly do not establish any broad rule under the FELA that the term “negligence” as used in that Act is not subject to the limiting doctrine of Gorris v. Scott, supra, which the District Court applied. Rather, they are based on a theory of liability wholly divorced from negligence. And in fact, the Court today invokes these decisions to support its conclusion that a “non-negligence” action based on violation of this Coast Guard regulation lies under the Jones Act. Its reasons for this conclusion are that the Jones Act “incorporates the provisions of the FELA” and “expressly provides for seamen the cause of action — and consequently the entire judicially developed doctrine of liability — granted to railroad workers by the FELA.” The Court thus reads these decisions to establish a doctrine under the FELA that injuries following any violation of any statute, not simply the Safety Appliance and Boiler Inspection Acts, are actionable without any showing of negligence, and it is this doctrine which, the Court argues, the Jones Act absorbs.
So unjustifiably broad a view of the doctrine this Court is said to have established disregards the basis upon which these earlier decisions proceed. In brief, they concentrate and explicitly rest upon the peculiar relationship between the Safety Appliance and the Boiler Inspection Acts, on the one hand, and the FELA, on the other. In view of this relationship, the Court, recognizing that *446neither of these safety Acts gives rise to a private cause of action of its own force, see, e. g., Urie v. Thompson, supra, at p. 188, has read the FELA to provide the private remedy to enforce the absolute liability which the Court considered the other Acts to establish. The Court’s opinion here makes no effort to show either that the statute authorizing the Coast Guard regulation was intended to give rise to an absolute liability for injuries resulting from its violation or that the Jones Act, a statute founded on negligence, was intended to be the medium of enforcement of such a liability.
In the cases involving the Safety Appliance and the Boiler Inspection Acts, the Court has repeatedly emphasized that the manifest purpose of Congress was to foster through these particular Acts the safety of employees and to make employees secure in their jobs, a purpose partially evidenced by statements prefacing each of these Acts as they were originally enacted: “An Act to promote the safety of employees and travelers upon railroads by compelling common carriers engaged in interstate commerce to . . .” follow the rules of each Act. 27 Stat. 531; 36 Stat. 913; Illinois Central R. Co. v. Williams, 242 U. S. 462, 466-467; Urie v. Thompson, supra, at 190-191. In keeping with this statement of purpose, two sections of the Safety Appliance Act expressly refer to the civil liability of employers to injured employees by abrogating the common-law defense of assumption of risk and by preserving such civil liability over a particular exception to the general liability for fines payable to the United States which is imposed on carriers for violation of the provisions of the Act. 27 Stat. 532, 45 U. S. C. § 7; 36 Stat. 299, 45 U. S. C. § 13.
Paralleling the provision of the Safety Appliance Act referring to assumption of risk is § 4 of the FELA, 35 Stat. 66, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 54, which abolishes *447the defense of assumption of risk not only with respect to actions grounded on negligence but also “in any case where the violation ... of any statute enacted for the safety of employees contributed to the injury or death of” an employee. This quoted clause is included also in § 3 of the Act, 35 Stat. 66, 45 U. S. C. § 53, which substitutes for the absolute common-law defense of contributory negligence what is in effect a rule of comparative negligence, but bars this defense completely in actions based on the violation of such a statute. The phrase “any statute enacted for the safety of employees” of course refers to the Safety Appliance Act, Moore v. Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co., 291 U. S. 205, 210, and to the Boiler Inspection Act, Urie v. Thompson, supra, at 188-189. The use of this phrase in juxtaposition with the term “negligence” in these sections confirms the congressional purpose to accord special treatment to employees injured by violations of these Acts.
These express indications of congressional intent to impose strict liability for injuries traceable to violations of these statutes underlay the holdings on which the Court relies. The intimate relationship between the Safety Appliance Act and the FELA was summed up by the Court in San Antonio & A. P. R. Co. v. Wagner, supra, in the following language (p. 484):
“If [the Safety Appliance Act] is violated, the question of negligence in the general sense of want of care is immaterial. . . . [T]he two statutes [Safety Appliance Act and the FELA] are in pari materia, and where the [FELA] refers to 'any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances,’ etc., it clearly is the legislative intent to treat a violation of the Safety Appliance Act as 'negligence’. . . .” (Italics in original.)
*448And in Urie v. Thompson, supra, the Court concluded (p. 189):
“In this view the Safety Appliance Acts, together with the Boiler Inspection Act, are substantively if not in form amendments to the [FELA]. . . . [They] cannot be regarded as statutes wholly separate from and independent of the [FELA]. They are rather supplemental to it, having the purpose and effect of facilitating employee recovery . . . .”
Finally, as noted above, the Court in Carter v. Atlanta & St. A. B. R. Co., supra, at 434, observed that “Congress has directed liability” under the FELA for injuries resulting from negligence or from violation of these Acts.
In short, I think it is evident that this Court’s past interpretation of the FELA to provide a cause of action based on absolute liability for injuries traceable to violations of these two particular safety statutes has rested entirely on its view of congressional intent, and that no general rule of absolute liability without regard to negligence for injuries resulting from violation of any statute can fairly be said to emerge from these decisions.
Despite the explanations in the past cases for creation of this absolute liability, the Court now asserts that “the nature of the Acts violated is not a controlling consideration.” Indeed, it does not even appear to be a pertinent consideration, for the opinion makes no effort to show that a similar congressional intent to create absolute liability in favor of seamen, or even to afford additional rights to seamen, can be discerned either in the terms of the statute authorizing this Coast Guard regulation or in its relationship with the Jones Act. It is abundantly clear from the face of the regulation, and its setting, that its purpose was simply to prevent collisions, rather than to guard against such unforeseeable occurrences as the *449explosion in this case.2 This is confirmed by the tenor of the section of the statute under which the regulation issued:
“The Commandant of the United States Coast Guard shall establish such rules to be observed on the waters mentioned in the preceding section by steam vessels in passing each other and as to the lights to be carried on such waters by ferryboats and by vessels and craft of all types when in tow of steam vessels ... as he from time to time may deem necessary for safety . ...” 3
Moreover, although another section of the same statute indicates that violation of this regulation does give rise to an absolute liability on the part of the master or mate *450of the tug for damages suffered by passengers, that section makes no reference to seamen’s remedies and provides generally that liability of the vessel or owner is not to be affected by the statute.4 Finally, there are no cross provisions between this statute and the sections of the FELA incorporated into the Jones Act comparable to those found between the FELA, on the one hand, and the Safety Appliance and Boiler Inspection Acts, on the other. In short, unlike the situation as to those statutes, one can look in vain for evidence of a congressional purpose to supplement the remedies for injuries due to negli*451gence available to seamen under the Jones Act by a cause of action based on absolute liability for damages suffered in consequence of a violation of this Coast Guard regulation. In these circumstances, the argument that such a cause of action arises because the Jones Act “expressly provides for seamen the cause of action . . . granted to railroad workers by the FELA” seems to me an empty one.
The premise of the Court that the FELA was intended to leave to federal courts the duty of fashioning remedies “to meet . . . changing concepts of industry’s duty toward its workers” underlies today’s holding. In carrying out this duty, the courts, as shown by this decision, are not to consider themselves confined by doctrines deeply ingrained in the common law of negligence upon which the FELA was predicated but instead are to be free to develop other theories of liability. Indeed, not content with its particular conclusion that violation of a statutory duty leads to absolute liability under the FELA and the Jones Act, the Court goes on to say that “the theory of the FELA is that where the employer’s conduct falls short of the high standard required of him by this Act, and his fault, in whole or in part, causes injury, liability ensues . . . whether the fault is a violation of a statutory duty or the more general duty of acting with care . . . .” Thus the Court in effect reads out of the FELA and the Jones Act the common-law concepts of foreseeability and risk of harm which lie at the very core of negligence liability, and treats these statutes as making employers in this area virtual insurers of the safety of their employees.
Whatever may be one’s views of the adequacy of “negligence” liability as the means of dealing with occupational hazards in these fields, Congress has not legis*452lated in terms of absolute liability. “The basis of liability under the Act is and remains negligence.” Wilkerson v. McCarthy, 336 U. S. 53, 69 (concurring opinion of Douglas, J.). And, except as expressly modified by Congress, the term “negligence” as it appears in § 1 of the FELA has always been taken to embody common-law concepts. Thus in Urie v. Thompson, supra, one of the principal cases on which the Court here relies, it was said (at 174, 182):
“The section [§ 1 of the FELA] does not define negligence, leaving that question to be determined . . . 'by the common law principles as established and applied in the federal courts.’. . .
“We recognize . . . that the Federal Employers’ Liability Act is founded on common-law concepts of negligence and injury, subject to such qualifications as Congress has'imported into those terms.” 5
I cannot agree that Congress intended the federal courts to roam at large in devising new bases of liability to replace the liability for negligence which these Acts imposed on employers.
I would affirm.

 This finding must rest on the assumption of the District Court that the regulation forbade respondent to carry any signal light at a height of less than eight feet above the water. However, it is questionable whether the regulation had the effect of proscribing a light at three feet, as well as requiring a light at a minimum height of eight feet. That is, the violation of the regulation may have consisted solely in the absence of a light eight feet above the water, not in the presence of a light three feet above the water, in which case the accident could not be attributed to violation of the regulation. For the purpose of this opinion, I shall assume, as the District Court necessarily concluded, that the violation of respondent consisted in carrying the light at three feet and was thus the factual cause of the accident.

 The particular regulation violated by respondent, 33 CFR § 80.16 (h), appears under Subchapter D of 33 CFR, which is entitled: “Navigation Requirements For Certain Inland Waters.” Section 80.16 itself bears the caption: “Lights for barges, canal boats, scows and other nondescript vessels on certain inland waters on the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts.” Other sections under Subchapter D regulate fog signals (§80.12), speed in fog (§80.13), and navigation near bends and curves (§80.5). Section 80.16 (h) itself states that a light shall be carried at a minimum height of eight feet above the surface of the water “. . . and shall be so placed as to show an unbroken light all around the horizon, and shall be of such a character as to be visible on a dark night with a clear atmosphere at a distance of at least 5 miles.”

 This section, 30 Stat. 102, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 157, appears under Chapter 3 of Title 33, which bears the title: “Navigation Rules for Harbors, Rivers, And Inland Waters Generally.” Other sections under Chapter 3 refer to sound signals (33 U. S. C. § 191), speed in fog (33 U. S. C. § 192), and ascertainment of risk of collision (33 U. S. C. §201). Section 157 was originally enacted as part of the Act of June 7,1897, and the clear purpose of that Act was simply to effect a codification of all rules governing navigation on inland waters so that they would conform in the highest possible degree to prevailing international rules for the prevention of collisions at sea. H. R. Doc. No. 42, 55th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 1.

 30 Stat. 102, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 158, was also enacted as part of the Act of June 7, 1897, note 3, supra. It provides in part that: “Every pilot, engineer, mate, or master of any steam vessel .. . and every master or mate of any barge or canal boat, who neglects or refuses to observe the provisions of . . . the regulations established in pursuance of [§ 157, text at note 3, supra] . . . shall be liable to a penalty of one -hundred dollars, and for all damages sustained by any passenger in his person or baggage by such neglect or refusal: Provided, That nothing herein shall relieve any vessel, owner, or corporation from any liability’ incurred -by reason of such neglect or refusal.” As originally dr'afted, preceding its enactment in 1897, present § 158 read substantially as it does now, except that it did not contain the last “Provided” clause. H. R. Doc. No. 42, 55th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 9. In the House debates concerning the Act of 1897, discussion was directed in part to this section and the question was raised whether its effect might be to impose liability for injury to passengers exclusively upon officers of the vessels, who might be financially irresponsible. 30 Cong. Rec. 1395. To end these doubts, the section was amended prior to its enactment by addition of the “Provided” clause. Representative Payne stated that the amendment’s purpose was to make clear that liability of the vessel or owner of the vessel for damages would remain entirely unaffected by the section. 30 Cong. Rec. 1465. In other words, the Act of 1897 was not intended either to define to any extent liability of a vessel or its owner or to advance the remedies or broaden the rights of seamen, but simply afforded passengers remedies against officers personally liable because of breach of regulations.

 The qualifications of course refer to those provisions of the FELA not applicable to the facts of this case which modify or abrogate the common-law defenses of contributory negligence, § 3, 35 Stat. 66, 45 U. S. C. § 53, and assumption of risk, § 4, 35 Stat. 66, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 54.