Court Opinion

ID: 9447992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:19:16.047391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:15.042267
License: Public Domain

MURRAH, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
If the liability of the employer railroad is to be judged by the common law rule of respondeat superior, the judgment of the trial court is undoubtedly right and ought to be affirmed. For, under that rule, as it has been generally applied in F.E.L.A. cases, a railroad is not liable to an injured employee for the sportive or malicious acts of fellow employees because not done in furtherance of the master’s business. But we have been repeatedly admonished that the statutory liability of an employer-railroad to an injured employee is “significantly different from the ordinary common-law negligence action * * I. e., see Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 509, 77 S.Ct. 443, 450, 1 L.Ed.2d 493.
We have been reproached for persistent adherence to the principles of common law liability in the face of a Congressional intent to provide a remedy “to meet changing conditions and changing concepts of industry’s duty toward *123its workers.” Kernan v. American Dredging Co., 355 U.S. 426, 78 S.Ct. 394, 398, 2 L.Ed.2d 382; see also Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., supra. Our reluctance to recognize this conceptual difference had led the Supreme Court to grant certiorari in more F.E.L.A. cases than any other type of litigation. See Mr. Justice Douglas concurring in Wilkerson v. McCarthy, 336 U.S. 53, 71, 69 S.Ct. 413, 93 L.Ed. 497; Mr. Justice Frankfurter dissenting in Ferguson v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., 352 U.S. 521, 524, 77 S.Ct. 457, 1 L.Ed.2d 511; Harris v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 361 U.S. 15, 80 S.Ct. 22, 4 L.Ed.2d 1. Out of a series of cases beginning with Wilkerson v. McCarthy, supra, and ending with Sinkler v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 356 U.S. 326, 78 S.Ct. 758, 2 L.Ed.2d 799, has come an unmistakable concept of a statutory liability which is an “avowed departure from the rules of the common law.” Id., 356 U.S. at page 329, 78 S.Ct. at page 762. The prevailing opinions in these cases leave no doubt of a disposition to construe Section 1 of the F.E.L.A. as establishing a statutory liability analagous to the common law, yet more like liability without fault. Indeed, the dissenters have accused the majority of giving “lip service” to liability for fault, i. e., see Mr. Justice Jackson dissenting in Wilkerson v. McCarthy, supra, while converting the F.E.L.A. “into what amounts to a workmen’s compensation statute.” See Mr. Justice Harlan dissenting in Sinkler v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., supra, 356 U.S. at page 332, 78 S.Ct. at page 763. See also Mr. Justice Whittaker dissenting in Moore v. Terminal Railroad Ass’n, 358 U.S. 31, 32, 79 S.Ct. 2, 3 L.Ed.2d 24.
True, most of the eases evidencing the trend involved the sufficiency of the facts to make out a jury case. Of the recent cases, only Sinkler v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., supra, involved the doctrine of respondeat superior. The question there was whether the doctrine operated to insulate the railroad-employer from the negligent acts of its independent contractor. While recognizing some common law exceptions to the general rule, based upon the theory of the non-delegable duty of the railroad to its employees, the court was at pains to state that the railroad’s liability did not depend upon the common law principles of agency. Liability there rested upon the proposition that “while the common law had generally regarded the torts of fellow servants as separate and distinct from the torts of the employer, holding the latter responsible only for his own torts, it was the conception of this legislation that the railroad was a unitary enterprise, its economic resources obligated to bear the burden of all injuries befalling those engaged in the enterprise arising out of the fault of any other member engaged in the common endeavor. Hence, a railroad worker may recover from his employer for an injury caused in whole or in part by a fellow worker, not because the employer is himself to blame, but because justice demands that one who gives his labor to the furtherance of the enterprise should be assured that all combining their exertions with him in the common pursuit will conduct themselves in all respect with sufficient care that his safety while doing his part will not be endangered. If this standard is not met and injury results, the worker is compensated in damages.” Id., 356 U.S. at page 330, 78 S.Ct. at page 762.
This “broad purpose” is to control in applying the “standard governing the liability of * * * workers injured on the job.” Id., 356 U.S. at page 331, 78 S.Ct. at page 762. I am unable to discern any rational difference between the Sinkler situation and ours. Here the employee was injured in the performance of his duties. His injuries resulted “in whole or in part” from the negligence of a fellow employee while the latter’s employment was going on. While the negligent act was not done in furtherance of the master’s business, if we are to accord the statutory word “employee” the same “accommodating *124scope” and “vitality” given the word “agent” in Sinkler, we are brought to the point of holding the railroad liable. Believing, as I do, that a majority of the Supreme Court would so hold, I must respectfully dissent.