Court Opinion

ID: 9476472
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:56:52.214763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:20.068198
License: Public Domain

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent because I believe that the indemnity agreement did not cover Railroad’s violation of the Safety Appliance Act (SAA) 45 U.S.C. § 2.
As the majority opinion sets out, Paper agreed to indemnify Railroad for “liability ... which the railroad may incur ... arising out of or in any way attributable to ... the construction, maintenance, existence, use, operation or removal of said chip pit ... regardless of any negligence of Railroad.” Railroad paid Newsome $125,000. The question is: Why was Railroad liable to Newsome?
In its appellate brief, Railroad concedes that “the coupling failed to make” and that Newsome was hurt while trying to couple the cars manually. Thus, Railroad admits that it violated the SAA. Once the automatic coupler failed, Railroad became absolutely liable to Newsome for any injury he might suffer while trying to couple the cars manually. Not even contributory negligence on Newsome’s part could reduce the amount of damages. See Rogers v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., 352 U.S. 500, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957); 45 U.S.C. § 53. Nor could Paper’s responsibilities as to the chip pit in any way alter Railroad’s liability. As the Supreme Court stated in Rogers, if the SAA violation played “any part, even the slightest, in producing [Newsome’s] injury, it does not matter that, from the evidence, the jury may also ... attribute the [injury] to other causes.” 352 U.S. at 506, 77 S.Ct. at 448; see also Crane v. Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Railway Co., 395 U.S. 164, 89 S.Ct. 1706, 23 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969) (“injured employee [must] prove only the [SAA] violation and thus is relieved of the burden of proving negligence”); Carter v. Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay Railway Co., 338 U.S. 430, 70 S.Ct. 226, 94 L.Ed.2d 236 (1949); O’Donnell v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway Co., 338 U.S. 384, 70 S.Ct. 200, 94 L.Ed. 187 (1949). In other words, Railroad’s liability to Newsome arose solely from the SAA violation as a matter of causation defined by statute and not from the use or maintenance of or in connection with the chip pit. It is well established that SAA violations compel the abandonment of all the usual rules concerning causation and negligence of which lawyers and judges are so fond.
The majority properly recognizes that “simple presence on the chip pit when an injury occurs” is not enough to trigger *409indemnification. But it remands for the district court to decide “whether the accident was causally related to the existence and use of the chip pit.” For me, this inquiry is irrelevant. The SAA violation in its terms begins and ends the inquiry into cause as far as the railroad is concerned. The cause and the liability are absolute under the SAA. There is no authority under the SAA to inquire into “other causes” once the causation resulting from the defective coupling was established. Rogers, 352 U.S. at 506, 77 S.Ct. at 448.
The case before us is unlike one in which a railroad’s Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) liability would be based upon a negligent failure to provide a safe workplace. 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq. Assume that instead of violating the SAA, Railroad negligently had assigned Newsome to open the hopper doors in an unsafe situation and he slipped on chips while doing so. Railroad would be liable to Newsome for its negligent failure to provide a safe workplace, but it could recover indemnity from Paper under the 1979 Agreement, absent the barring of such recovery under Mississippi law. Newsome’s injury and Railroad’s liability would arise in part out of the use of the pit. The role the pit played in causation would be a proper inquiry. See Linden v. Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, 483 F.2d 29 (8th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1159, 94 S.Ct. 917, 39 L.Ed.2d 111 (1974). In Linden, a railroad employee was hurt at a chip pit while closing a hopper door when the hopper car was hit by another railroad car. The employee obviously was injured by railroad negligence in connection with the use of the pit. See also Steed v. Central of Georgia Railway Co., 529 F.2d 833 (5th Cir.) (Railroad could recover indemnity from Riegel for FELA payments made to employee hurt at Riegel’s unsafe plant), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 966, 97 S.Ct. 396, 50 L.Ed.2d 334 (1976).
In the case before us, however, the use of the pit cannot, under the SAA, contribute to or detract from Railroad’s liability at all, even assuming it did in fact contribute to Newsome’s injury. Regardless of why Newsome fell, and whether or not the operation of the pit had anything to do with it, the sole cause of the injury, by the terms of the SAA, was the failure of the automatic coupling.
The crux of this case is the fact that the $125,000 settlement paid by the Railroad was an absolute liability for having a defective coupling in violation of the SAA. Under the SAA, the pit could not have any causal relationship with the coupling or the liability. I would hold that the district court erred in awarding indemnification because Newsome’s injury is not and cannot be legally related to the chip pit. In so holding, there is no need to consider the Mississippi statute limiting indemnification for negligence in the construction industry (Miss.Code Ann. § 31-5-41) or the reasonableness of the settlement between New-some and Railroad.