Court Opinion

ID: 9884426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:56:17.041378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:17.370145
License: Public Domain

Friend, J., dissents: I know of no case which goes so far as to hold that the Safety Appliance Act is violated by the failure of a railroad company to equip cars with couplers having drawbars which will center themselves under all circumstances without the necessity of being manually placed in position to couple on impact; yet that is precisely the effect of the majority opinion. Plaintiff alleged that defendant had violated the Safety Appliance Act by failing to equip the cars with “couplers coupling automatically by impact.” In order to recover it was incumbent on him to prove that there was a failure to couple because the cars were not so equipped. I find no evidence that the freight cars in question were not equipped with couplers which would couple automatically by impact. There was no showing whatever that they were out of order! The most that plaintiff’s evidence established is that they were not at the moment aligned, or in position for coupling. The common practice among railroads is to center the drawbars by manual operation when they are out of alignment, before the coupling operation begins. Plaintiff himself testified (Abstract 18) that “when draw bars are out of alignment, they are put into alignment by the operation of physical strength. Strength is applied in two ways. The one which is more common on a car which is standing by itself would be to back up to the draw bar, hook your hands underneath it and lift it and swing it into position. But in a case like this, where you would have the other car to hold on to, then it is much more common to use the force of a leg to shove the draw bar over.” It was while engaged in this manual operation that plaintiff was injured. It must be presumed, because there is no evidence to the contrary, that if the drawbar had been manually centered, as was admittedly the common practice, the cars would have coupled automatically on impact, as required by the act. It has been held that a violation of the statute is shown by proof that cars upon a fair trial failed to couple automatically by impact. Southern Ry. Co. v. Stewart, 119 F. 2d 85 (1941). A full discussion of the duties placed on railroads under section 2 of the act is found in Western & Atlantic R. R. v. Gentle, 58 Ga. App. 282, 198 S. E. 257 (1938), certiorari denied 305 U. S. 654, wherein the court said: “The railroad has complied with the law when it equips its cars with couplers designed to couple automatically upon impact without the necessity of men going between the ends of the cars, which couplers are of general use among well-regulated railroads, and unless the failure of the couplers to couple on a given occasion results from some defect therein, the railroad cannot be held responsible for injuries resulting proximately therefrom. ... To give the act any other construction would result in absurdities, plainly not within the contemplation of Congress in the passage of this act.” The court quoted with approval the following view expressed in St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. of Texas v. Bounds, Tex. Civ. App., 244 S. W. 1099 (1922): “ ‘It would be manifestly unfair to hold that the carrier had violated the statute until the inefficiency of the device had been disclosed by some reasonable test that would justify the conclusion that it was defective.’ ” In the case at bar the evidence does not show any failure of the couplers to couple automatically by impact. The coupling operation had not begun and no attempt at coupling had been made. A violation of the statute as charged could be shown only if, with the drawbars in alignment, the cars actually failed to couple on impact without the necessity of someone going between the cars. The majority opinion relies heavily on Atlantic City R. R. Co. v. Parker, 242 U. S. 56. That decision can readily be distinguished from the case at bar because there an attempt had been made to couple a car onto the engine but the coupling failed to make. So far from being a “cow” case, as is suggested in the specially concurring opinion, it is really a “horse-of-another-color” case. The most recent pronouncement on the subject is to be found in Affolder v. N. Y., C. & St. L. R. Co., 339 U. S. 96 (1950), where there had been a failure to couple on impact in the course of the coupling operation, and the court held that a failure of equipment to perform as required by the Safety Appliance Act was in itself an actionable wrong. This is undoubtedly in harmony with current decisions, but the qualification in the opinion is significant: “Of course this assumes that the coupler was placed in a position to operate on impact. Thus, if ‘the failure of these two cars to couple on impact was because the coupler on the Pennsylvania car had not been properly opened, ’ the railroad had a good defense'. . . . Likewise, the argument of counsel, both for plaintiff and defendant, clearly reveals that the sole question with regard to this issue was whether, after the couplers were placed in open or proper position, they failed to couple automatically on impact.” Mr. Justice Jackson, dissenting from the majority opinion, expressed views not at variance with the main opinion as follows: “Before a failure to couple establishes a defective coupler, it must be found that it was properly set so it could couple. If it was not adjusted as such automatic couplers must be, of course the failure is not that of the device.” (Italics ours.) The marginal notes in the Aff older case indicate that there was something wrong with the knuckle. The head switchman had difficulty in opening it. As plaintiff’s counsel stated, “he had to push it three times, when it failed to open the first time, showing something was stuck.” The case was resolved on the interpretation of the instructions, and the court merely held that under the instructions given, the jury could find a failure of the equipment to perform as required by the act. The language used in both the majority and dissenting opinions in the Aff older case is clear and unequivocal. It indicates, it seems to me, as clearly as the English language can, that before a failure to couple establishes a defective coupler, the couplers must be properly set, and it would be an evasion of plain words to construe this as meaning that they must be automatically set by means of springs or devices of any other kind. In fact I find no case which holds or even suggests that the adjustment of the automatic couplers, before contact of two-cars is attempted, must be an automatic rather than a manual operation. On the contrary, from the language employed in the most recent decisions, one must assume that the courts had in mind that if the drawbars and knuckles are out of alignment they have to be adjusted manually before coupling is attempted. It is in this respect that I think the majority opinion goes far beyond any of the reported cases, since it. holds in effect, although it does not expressly so state, that section 2 of the Safety Appliance Act is violated if cars are not equipped with couplers having devices which automatically center the drawbar so that no manual operation is required. It is clear from the most recent expressions of the Supreme Court that this is contrary to the accepted practice. The statute has been complied with when the cars are supplied with couplers which will couple automatically on impact when properly set. In the case at bar, there was not the failure of equipment to perform found in the Aff older case. I am not unmindful of the fact that courts have construed the act liberally so as to permit recovery where legally possible, and this is as it should be. It is indeed difficult to deny recovery to an employee who has been severely injured, hut the adage that hard cases sometimes make bad law is, it seems to me, applicable to this situation.