Court Opinion

ID: 9425886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:07.20127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.133038
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
concurring in the judgment.
In determining Kelley’s status under- the FELA, the District Judge apparently relied on general agency principles, rather than on the particular principles of master-servant law. This was error, and it is thus proper to remand this case to the District Judge so that he can take a fresh look at the record, in light of the correct legal standard.
The correct standard is not a novel one. The law of master and servant has been with us for a long time, and its adequate exposition elsewhere, e. g., Restatement (Second) of Agency §§ 5 (2), 220, 226, and 227 renders much of the Court’s extended discussion unnecessary. But my chief problem with the Court’s opinion is its insistence upon dissecting the particularized evidence in this case. Whether or not the Southern Pacific Co. controlled or had the right to control Kelley’s work is for the original factfinder to determine.
*333The Court today substantially invades the trial court’s function. If the Court wishes to decide the issue itself, a remand is unnecessary. If the Court wishes to leave the decision to the District Judge, who saw the evidence and heard the witnesses, much of the detailed discussion of the evidence in the Court’s opinion is gratuitous.
I believe that both the efficient allocation of judicial resources and the ends of justice are best served by a remand — but a genuine remand, affording the District Judge latitude to perform his proper function as fact-finder. Because the Court’s opinion bristles with broad hints that a finding of FELA coverage would be clearly erroneous, its remand of this case seems to me to approach disingenuousness.