In re Asbestos Prods. Liab. Litig. (No. VI).

• Citation: 822 F.3d 125
• Decision Date: 16 May 2016
• Docket Number: 14–1804.,Nos. 14–1715,s. 14–1715
• Parties: In re ASBESTOS PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION (NO. VI). Peggy R. Hassell, individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Billie L. Hassell, deceased, Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit)

822 F.3d 125

In re ASBESTOS PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION (NO. VI).

Peggy R. Hassell, individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Billie L. Hassell, deceased, Appellant.

Nos. 14–1715
14–1804.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued Nov. 19, 2015.
Opinion Filed: May 16, 2016.

822 F.3d 128

Howard J. Bashman, Willow Grove, PA, John D. Roven [Argued], Roven Kaplan, West Houston, TX, Counsel for Appellant Peggy R. Hassell.

Joseph E. Richotte [Argued], Butzel Long, Bloomfield Hills, MI, James E. Wynne, Butzel Long Detroit, MI, Counsel for Appellee The Budd Company, Inc.

Holli Pryor–Baze [Argued], John K. Grantham, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Houston, TX, Counsel for Appellee Resco Holdings LLC.

Before: AMBRO, HARDIMAN, and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.

Peggy Hassell, on behalf of herself and her deceased husband's estate, appeals an order of the District Court dismissing her civil suit against The Budd Company and Resco Holdings LLC. Hassell asserted state law causes of action arising from her husband's exposure to asbestos during the forty years he worked for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (the Railroad). Budd and Resco moved to dismiss, arguing that Hassell's claims were preempted by the Locomotive Inspection Act, 49 U.S.C. § 20701 et seq., and the Safety Appliance Act, 49 U.S.C. § 20301 et seq. The District Court granted the companies' motion, holding that Hassell's claims were preempted by the Locomotive Inspection Act.

In this appeal, Hassell claims that the District Court erred procedurally by dismissing her complaint based on facts that were neither in her complaint nor undisputed. Hassell also contends that the District Court misapplied the preemptive scope of the Locomotive Inspection Act to hold her claims preempted. Because we agree with Hassell's procedural argument, we will vacate the Court's order and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the rapid growth of the railroad industry in the United States brought with it numerous accidents and deaths. See, e.g., Charles W. McDonald, Federal Railroad Administration, The Federal Railroad Safety Program 2–6 (Aug. 1993). In response to these safety concerns and because of the variety of state laws regulating the industry, Congress in 1893 passed the Safety Appliance Act (SAA). Act of Mar. 2, 1893, ch. 196, 27 Stat. 531–32, amended by Act of Mar. 2, 1903, ch. 976, 32 Stat. 943, and Act of Apr. 14, 1910, ch. 160, 36 Stat. 298; see also Lorenzo S. Coffin, Safety Appliances on the Railroads, 5 Annals of Iowa 561, 569–80 (1903). Full implementation of the SAA, which required railroads to equip trains with automatic couplers and power brakes, was delayed until 1900. See Note, The Federal Safety Appliance Act as a Regulation of Interstate Commerce, 3 Mich. L.Rev. 387, 388 (1905). Eleven years later, Congress began regulating locomotive steam boilers through the Boiler Inspection Act (BIA). Act of Feb. 17, 1911, ch. 103, § 2, 36 Stat. 913–14. Soon thereafter, the BIA was amended to cover the entire locomotive as well as its “parts and appurtenances.” Act of Mar. 4, 1915, ch. 169, 38 Stat. 1192. The statute as amended has since been known as the Locomotive Boiler Inspection Act, or simply the Locomotive Inspection Act (LIA).¹

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The increased federal regulation of the locomotive industry resulted in conflicts with various state laws. Accordingly, in Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co., 272 U.S. 605, 47 S.Ct. 207, 71 L.Ed. 432 (1926), the Supreme Court was presented with constitutional challenges to laws in Georgia and Wisconsin that required the Court to decide whether Congress intended “to occupy the entire field of regulating locomotive equipment.” Id. at 611, 47 S.Ct. 207. The Court noted that the SAA, which included specific requirements, and the BIA, which regulated only boilers, did not preempt the field. Id. As amended in 1915, however, the LIA included a “general” power that “extend [ed] to the design, the construction, and the material of every part of the locomotive and tender and of all appurtenances.” 272 U.S. at 611, 47 S.Ct. 207. The “broad scope” of this “general” authority led the Court to conclude that Congress, in enacting the LIA, had “occupied the field of regulating locomotive equipment.” Id. at 607, 613, 47 S.Ct. 207. For that reason, “[b]ecause the standard set by the [Interstate Commerce] Commission must prevail, requirements by the states are precluded, however commendable or different their purpose.” Id. at 613, 47 S.Ct. 207.²

Almost a century later, the Supreme Court revisited the LIA's preemptive scope in Kurns v. Railroad Friction Products Corp., ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 1261, ––– L.Ed.2d –––– (2012). Unlike Napier —which involved the preemption of state statutes—Kurns considered whether the LIA preempted state causes of action. The plaintiffs in Kurns asserted state law defective-design and failure-to-warn claims against the manufacturers of locomotive brake shoes and locomotive engine valves that contained asbestos. 132 S.Ct. at 1265. Underscoring that “Napier defined the field pre-empted by the LIA on the basis of the physical elements regulated, ” the Court held that the state law claims were preempted because they were “directed at the equipment of locomotives.” 132 S.Ct. at 1269 (emphasis added); see also id. at 1270 (Kagan, J., concurring) (“According to Napier, the scope of the agency's power under the [LIA] determines the boundaries of the preempted field.”). The Court thus rejected the distinction between common law claims and positive law enacted through state legislation or regulation, holding that Napier 's “categorical conclusion admits of no exception for state common-law duties and standards of care ... [because] state ‘regulation can be ... effectively exerted through an award of damages.’ ” Id. at 1269 (quoting San Diego Bldg. Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 247, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959) ). And by holding the plaintiffs' failure-to-warn claims preempted, the Court also precluded the attachment of state law duties or conditions to locomotive equipment because such legal requirements would “inevitably influence a manufacturer's choice whether to use that particular design.” Id. at 1268 n. 4.

822 F.3d 130

II

Having summarized the law of field preemption under the LIA, we turn to the parties' dispute in this appeal. Hassell's civil action against Budd and Resco was filed in Texas state court. The case was removed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas and transferred to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania as part of a multidistrict litigation. Hassell then filed an amended complaint asserting state law products liability claims based on the following facts.

Between 1945 and the mid–1970s, Hassell's husband Billie was employed as an electrician by the Railroad. Billie's responsibilities included the maintenance and repair of passenger railcars designed and manufactured by Budd's and Resco's predecessors in interest. Steam pipes running underneath those railcars were insulated with material containing asbestos, and he was exposed to asbestos contained in the dust produced during the maintenance and repair of the railcars. As a consequence of this exposure, Billie contracted asbestosis and mesothelioma. He died on May 30, 2009, during the pendency of this lawsuit.

Budd, joined by Resco, moved the District Court to dismiss Hassell's amended complaint, arguing that her state law claims were preempted by the LIA, the SAA, and the Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA), 49 U.S.C. § 20101 et seq. The District Court denied the motion without prejudice in light of our intervening opinion in Kurns v. A.W. Chesterton Inc. (Kurns I ), 620 F.3d 392 (3d Cir.2010), and the Supreme Court's decision to grant a petition for writ of certiorari to hear that case. See Kurns v. Railroad Friction Products Corp., 563 U.S. 1032, 131 S.Ct. 2959, 180 L.Ed.2d 244 (2011). By this point in the proceedings, the parties had already completed substantial discovery.

In February 2012, the Supreme Court affirmed our judgment in Kurns I and Budd renewed its motion to dismiss (which Resco again joined). See Kurns, 132 S.Ct. at 1264. In the company's renewed motion—which it “[a]lternatively” styled as a motion for summary judgment, App. 37a—Budd observed that the Supreme Court in Kurns had reaffirmed the scope of LIA preemption as defined in Napier and argued that the LIA preempted Hassell's claims because the asbestos-insulated steam pipes on the passenger railcars qualified as locomotive “parts and appurtenances” under the statute. 49 U.S.C. § 20701. Budd claimed that the “pipes were connected to the locomotive, which supplied heat from the locomotive's engine to the pipes,” and that “[t]his kind of interconnected system qualifies as an appurtenance of the locomotive.” App. 49a. Hassell countered that Budd had produced no evidence to support the company's factual allegations, and that, in any event, she had produced evidence that the Railroad had used “power cars” to heat passenger compartments,³ such that the passenger railcars “would not even have [had] a metaphysical connection to a...