Carrillo v. ACF Industries, Inc.

• Decision Date: 27 July 1999
• Docket Number: No. S072065,S072065
• Citation: 20 Cal.4th 1158,980 P.2d 386,86 Cal.Rptr.2d 832
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 980 P.2d 386, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,585, 99 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5916 Jose CARRILLO, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ACF INDUSTRIES, INC., Defendant and Appellant

Page 832

86 Cal.Rptr.2d 832

20 Cal.4th 1158, 980 P.2d 386, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,585,

99 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5916

Jose CARRILLO, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ACF INDUSTRIES, INC., Defendant and Appellant.

No. S072065.

Supreme Court of California

July 27, 1999.

Horvitz & Levy, Ellis J. Horvitz, Barry R. Levy, Andrea M. Gauthier, Encino; Dwyer, Daly, Brotzen & Bruno, Ronald A. Dwyer, Toni Rae Bruno, Los Angeles, and Douglas W. Schroeder, Santa Ana, for Defendant and Appellant.

Mayer, Brown & Platt, Kenneth S. Geller, Alan E. Untereiner and Donald M. Falk, Washington, DC, for Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant.

Louis P. Warchot; Michael J. Rush; and Gloria W. Topping for Association of American Railroads as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant.

Fogel, Feldman, Ostrov, Ringler & Klevens, Jerome L. Ringler, Lester G. Ostrov, Santa Monica, Toni Martinson and Jan G. Levine, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Eisen & Johnston, Jay-Allen Eisen, Marian M. Johnston, Sacramento; Mound, Cotton & Wollan, Ellen G. Margolis and Daniel Markewich, New York City, as Amicus Curiae.

BROWN, J.

Under the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution (art. I, § 8), do federal statutes specifying safety equipment on railroad freight cars preempt a state common law claim for tort damages based on allegedly defective design with respect to such equipment? The Court of Appeal determined federal law did not displace the state action. We conclude otherwise. As interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, the statutes and their implementing regulations reflect a congressional intent to occupy the field regulating railroad safety appliances, thus precluding any state law directed to the same matter, including common law tort claims predicated on design defects. Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeal.

FACTS

On June 30, 1992, plaintiff Jose Carrillo (plaintiff) was driving a truck for his employer, Amoco Chemical Company. He delivered a truckload of polystyrene pellets to a hopper car--a type of boxcar equipped with roof hatches and funnel-like internal compartments in which small pieces of material can be stored and unloaded through a hinged door in the floor--owned by Wincup Holdings, Inc. The pellets were transferred from the truck to the roof hatches of the railcar by pumping them through a heavy steel hose. On the preceding day and for much of that day, Wincup employees did the actual work of transferring the pellets, using a rope to secure the steel hose to one of the car's roof hatches. Plaintiff operated the pump from his truck below.

Around noon, Wincup's employees told plaintiff they were leaving for lunch and would be back in about 30 minutes. They had not returned after half an hour, at which point he noticed pellets overflowing from the top of the railcar. He turned off the truck's pump motor and waited another 20 minutes. When Wincup's workers still had not returned, plaintiff decided to reposition the steel hose himself. Climbing a ladder to the top of the 15-and-a-half-foot-high car, he untied the rope from the hatch and began to pull the steel hose from the car's interior. As he did so, the rope securing the hose came free, allowing the hose to hit him. Plaintiff spun backward and off the top of the car, struck a concrete wall alongside the track with both hands before hitting the ground, and sustained extensive wrist, leg and heel injuries.

Plaintiff filed this personal injury suit for tort damages against the railcar manufacturer, ACF Industries, Inc. (defendant), based on strict product liability theories of design defect and failure to warn. He asserted the top walkways on either side of the car's roof hatches were unsafe because they were not equipped with either a three-and-a-half-foot-high railing or a lower railing to which a lanyard and safety harness could be attached to secure a worker atop the car against falls. Neither the federal Safety Appliance Acts (collectively the SAA; see 49 U.S.C. § 20301 et seq.) nor its regulations (see 49 C.F.R. § 231 et seq. (1997)) require these features. Nor does the Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA; see 49 U.S.C. § 20101 et seq.).

Following trial, a jury awarded plaintiff $1.4 million in damages. Defendant sought a judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the ground state tort remedies were preempted by the SAA and the FRSA. The trial court denied the motion. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment, holding that federal law did not preempt plaintiff's action because neither statute specifically addressed the subject of guardrails on hopper cars.

We granted defendant's petition for review and for the reasons that follow now reverse.

DISCUSSION

Federal preemption "fundamentally is a question of congressional intent...." (English v. General Electric Co. (1990) 496 U.S. 72, 78-79, 110 S.Ct. 2270, 110 L.Ed.2d 65.) "Pre-emption occurs when Congress, in enacting a federal statute, expresses a clear intent to pre-empt state law, [citation], when there is outright or actual conflict between federal and state law, [citation], where compliance with both federal and state law is in effect physically impossible, [citation], where there is implicit in federal law a barrier to state regulation, [citation], where Congress has legislated comprehensively, thus occupying an entire field of regulation and leaving no room for the States to supplement federal law, [citation], or where the state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full objectives of Congress. [Citation.]" (Louisiana Public Service Comm'n v. FCC (1986) 476 U.S. 355, 368-369, 106 S.Ct. 1890, 90 L.Ed.2d 369.) In whichever circumstance the question arises, "we 'start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.' [Citations.]" (Medtronic, Inc. v Lohr (1996) 518 U.S. 470, 485, 116 S.Ct. 2240, 135 L.Ed.2d 700 (Medtronic ).) These principles apply with equal force whether the state law takes the form of a legislative enactment or an award of damages through private suit. (San Diego Building Trades Council, etc. v. Garmon (1959) 359 U.S. 236, 247, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775; Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Rigsby (1916) 241 U.S. 33, 41-42, 36 S.Ct. 482, 60 L.Ed. 874; see Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc. (1992) 505 U.S. 504, 521, 112 S.Ct. 2608, 120 L.Ed.2d 407.)

The SAA, now set forth at 49 United States Code section 20301 et seq., constitutes a series of measures enacted between 1893 and 1910 intended to standardize regulations relating to rail-freight-car safety devices for the benefit of workers and passengers. (See, e.g., Illinois Central R. Co. v. Williams (1917) 242 U.S. 462, 466-467, 37 S.Ct. 128, 61 L.Ed. 437.) As early as 1915, the United States Supreme Court spoke to its preemptive effect. While as a general rule state and federal sovereignties may exercise concurrent jurisdiction and each penalize the same act, that principle "has no application where one of the governments has exclusive jurisdiction of the subject-matter, and therefore the exclusive power to punish. Such is the case here where Congress, in the exercise of its power to regulate interstate commerce, has legislated as to the appliances with which certain instrumentalities of that commerce must be furnished in order to secure the safety of employe[e]s. Until Congress entered this field, the States could legislate as to equipment in such manner as to incidentally affect without burdening interstate commerce.... Congress of course could have 'circumscribed its regulations' so as to occupy a limited field. [Citations.] But so far as it did legislate, the exclusive effect of the Safety Appliance Act did not relate merely to details of the statute and the penalties it imposed, but extended to the whole subject of equipping cars with appliances intended for the protection of employe[e]s." (Southern Ry. Co. v. R.R. Comm., Indiana (1915) 236 U.S. 439, 446, 35 S.Ct. 304, 59 L.Ed. 661 (Southern ).) In sum, "it is sufficient here to say that Congress has so far occupied the field of legislation relating to the equipment of [rail] freight cars with safety appliances as to supersede existing and prevent further legislation on that subject." (Id. at p. 447, 35 S.Ct. 304.)

Shortly thereafter, the high court cited Southern in reiterating that "the United States has exercised its exclusive powers over interstate commerce so far as to take possession of the field [of rail safety appliances], [and thus] the States no more can supplement its requirements than they can annul them. [Citations.]" (Penna. R.R. Co. v. Pub. Service Comm. (1919) 250 U.S. 566, 569, 40 S.Ct. 36, 63 L.Ed. 1142 (Penna. R. R.).) "So far as the safety equipment of [rail] vehicles is concerned, these Acts operate to exclude state regulation whether consistent, complementary, additional, or otherwise. [Citations.]" (Gilvary v. Cuyahoga Valley Ry. (1934) 292 U.S. 57, 60-61, 54 S.Ct. 573, 78 L.Ed. 1123 (Gilvary ); see also Davis v. Manry (1925) 266 U.S. 401, 404-405, 45 S.Ct. 163, 69 L.Ed. 350.) As Justice Holmes succinctly explained, "The subject-matter in this instance is peculiarly one that calls for uniform law...." (Penna. R. R., supra, 250 U.S. at p. 569, 40 S.Ct. 36; cf. Transportation Union v. Long Island R. Co. (1982) 455 U.S. 678, 687-688, 102 S.Ct. 1349, 71 L.Ed.2d 547, fns. omitted ["Railroads have been subject to comprehensive federal regulation for nearly a century.... There is no comparable history of longstanding state regulation ... of the railroad industry."].)

That insight is as true now as it was in the glory days of rail a century ago. In our modern rail system, individual freight cars are treated interchangeably as "free runners," traveling on continent-wide routes and multiple roads in an interstate system that knows no boundaries....