Brooks v. Southern Ry. Co., 71986

• Decision Date: 19 March 1986
• Docket Number: No. 71986,71986
• Parties: BROOKS v. SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 143

343 S.E.2d 143

178 Ga.App. 361

BROOKS v. SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY.

No. 71986.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

March 19, 1986.

William R. Moseley, Jr., Atlanta, J. Weldon Granger, Donald F. Ruzicka, for appellant.

Edgar A. Neely, Jr., Michael N. Weathersby, Atlanta, for appellee.

DEEN, Presiding Judge.

On August 6, 1984, the appellant, James Earl Brooks, was employed as a laborer by the appellee, Southern Railway Company. Early that morning he and another employee lifted a 3 inch by 10 inch by 16 1/2 feet scaffolding board which weighed between 200 and 250 pounds. Although Brooks employed the safe lifting methods prescribed by the appellee, upon raising his end of the board he felt a painful snapping in his lower back and fell to the ground. Shortly thereafter he reported his injury to his foreman, who assented to Brooks' request for permission to try to "walk off" the pain but made no further inquiry or offer to procure medical treatment. Although in pain, Brooks attempted to work the remainder of the day. At approximately 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., Brooks reported the injury to his assistant supervisor, with no response. The following morning Brooks awoke stiff, in pain, and unable to move. Subsequent medical treatment revealed a herniated disc in his lumbar spine, which ultimately required surgery in October 1984.

Prior to his injury, Brooks had worked as a laborer with the appellee for several years, during which time he had lifted similar scaffolding boards on numerous occasions. He had never requested additional help with lifting these boards, and in fact had not been worried about overexertion at the time of the injury. A locomotive crane was on the job site, but it was used primarily for pile-driving and occasionally lifting materials too heavy to be handled manually; the appellee considered this crane unsuitable for lifting single scaffolding boards because such boards lacked sufficient weight even to stretch the crane's cable.

Brooks commenced this action against the appellee, pursuant to the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq., contending that the appellee had caused his injury by its negligent failure to maintain a safe work place. This appeal follows from the trial court's grant of summary judgment for the appellee. Held:

Under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, supra, the appellee would be liable to Brooks for any injury suffered by Brooks as a result of the appellee's negligence. Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.E.2d 493 (1957). An employer has a non-delegable duty to exercise reasonable care to provide employees with a safe place to work, Shenker v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 374 U.S. 1, 83 S.Ct. 1667, 10 L.E.2d 709 (1962); Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Thompson, 213 Ga. 70, 97 S.E.2d 135 (1957), and this duty may include furnishing employees with adequate equipment and sufficient crew to perform an assigned task.

The United States Supreme Court has noted that "[t]he likelihood of injury to men pulling or lifting beyond their capacity is obvious." Stone v. New York, etc., R. Co., 344 U.S. 407, 409, 73 S.Ct. 358, 359, 97 L.E. 441 (1952). Before an employer may be held negligent and thus liable under the Federal Employers' Liability Act for an employee's injury in such a situation, however, it must be shown that the employer knew or had reason to know that the employee was in a position of pulling or lifting beyond his capacity. In Stone, for example, despite the employee's protestation that he was pulling on a rail tie as hard as he could, the foreman demanded that he pull harder; complying with that command, the employee injured his back.

In the instant case, however, there was no basis for the employer to suspect that Brooks was lifting beyond his capacity. Rather, the obvious and uncontroverted fact was that Brooks and the other laborers had routinely, manually lifted the scaffolding boards (of approximately the same size and weight) in the manner in which Brooks and his co-worker had done so on the day of the injury. None of the laborers, including Brooks, had ever complained of any excessive difficulty in performing that task, and Brooks himself admitted that before the injury he had not considered lifting such scaffolding boards beyond his physical capacity. In short, under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, an employer is not an insurer of his employee's safety, and, there being absolutely no basis for finding that Brooks' acute injury resulted from any negligence of the employer, the appellee was entitled to summary judgment to this extent. Compare Southern R. Co. v. Welch, 247 F.2d 340 (6th Cir.1957).

Brooks also contends that at least an issue of fact exists over whether the appellee should be liable for aggravation of his injury by virtue of the failure of both his foreman and the assistant supervisor to...