Copeland v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company, 6599.

• Decision Date: 05 May 1961
• Docket Number: No. 6599.,6599.
• Citation: 291 F.2d 119
• Parties: George COPELAND, Appellant, v. ST. LOUIS-SAN FRANCISCO RAILWAY COMPANY, a corporation, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

291 F.2d 119 (1961)

George COPELAND, Appellant, v. ST. LOUIS-SAN FRANCISCO RAILWAY COMPANY, a corporation, Appellee.

No. 6599.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

May 5, 1961.

Hal Welch, Hugo, Okl., for appellant.

Ben Franklin of Franklin & Harmon, Oklahoma City, Okl. (James L. Homire, St. Louis, Mo., was with him on the brief), for appellee.

Before MURRAH, Chief Judge, PICKETT, Circuit Judge, and KERR, District Judge.

PICKETT, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff brought this action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq., to recover for injuries alleged to have been suffered through the negligence of a fellow employee. The parties stipulated that the case should be tried to the court without a jury upon the testimony of the plaintiff. This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of the defendant railroad in which the court found that the plaintiff's injuries resulted from the unauthorized, "sportive" or "prankish" acts of a fellow employee which were "wholly outside his employment, intended only to further his own interests, and not in the interests of his employer."

The facts are not disputed. The plaintiff, Copeland, was one of four employees engaged in unloading crossties from defendant's boxcars and stacking them in piles along side the tracks. The employees had devised a system of unloading ties pursuant to which one man worked inside the boxcar, one worked outside stacking the ties in a pile, and the remaining two carried the ties from the car to the pile, over a ramp extending from the car door. The duty of the employee inside the car was to remove the ties, which weighed from 200 to 300 pounds each, from their position, and stand them on end at a location where they could be conveniently taken singly by one of the carriers on his shoulder. It was not part of his job to assist in any manner with the balancing of the ties on the carrier's shoulder preparatory to their removal from the boxcar. On one of his trips, the plaintiff was in the process of balancing a tie on his shoulder and removing it from the car when his fellow employee who was working inside the car, as a practical joke, and as a prank, pushed upward on the back end of the tie. This unbalanced the tie which pulled the plaintiff over, and he sustained the injuries complained of.¹

At the outset, it should be noted that this case does not raise the question of whether the railroad knowingly tolerated the playful or prankish acts complained of, nor that of whether it employed persons of known propensities for such conduct. Neither is it one of that class of cases in which the injury was occasioned by the willful act of an employee attempting to accomplish the master's business in an improper manner. E. g., Steeley v. Kurn, 313 U.S. 545, 61 S.Ct. 1087, 85 L.Ed. 1512; Jamison v. Encarnacion, 281 U.S. 635, 50 S.Ct. 440, 74 L.Ed. 1082. It is a case submitted on undisputed evidence to the effect that the injury to the plaintiff was caused by a fellow servant who was acting entirely upon his own impulse, for his own amusement, and for no purpose of or benefit to the defendant employer. No contention is made that there was direct negligence on the part of the railroad, instead recovery is sought on the sole theory of respondeat superior.

Section 1 of the F.E.L.A., 45 U.S.C.A. § 51, provides that common carriers by railroad, while engaged in interstate commerce, "shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce, * * * for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, * * *." Although other provisions abrogate common law defenses to actions brought under the F.E.L.A., it is apparent that a railroad is liable only in those cases in which injury to an employee results from the negligence of the railroad, or of its "officers, agents, or employees" for whose negligence it is responsible. Chesapeake & O. Ry. Co. v. Stapleton, 279 U.S. 587, 49 S.Ct. 442, 73 L.Ed. 861; Erie R. R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 170, 37 S.Ct. 556, 61 L. Ed. 1057; New York Cent. R. R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 147, 37 S.Ct. 546, 61 L.Ed. 1045; Atlantic Coast Line R. R. Co. v. Massengill, 4 Cir., 264 F.2d 726. The Supreme Court has specifically stated that the statute does not constitute the railroad an absolute insurer of its employees.²

The courts have held that an employer is not liable under the F.E.L.A. for assaults by employees upon fellow employees, which assaults are not committed within the scope of the wrongdoers' employment in furtherance of the master's business. Davis v. Green, 260 U.S. 349, 43 S.Ct. 123, 67 L.Ed. 299; Euresti v. Washington Terminal Co., 108 U.S.App.D.C. 81, 280 F.2d 629; Sheaf v. Minneapolis, St. P. & S. Ste. M. Ry. Co., 8 Cir., 162 F.2d 110; Ochsrider v. Reading Co., D.C.E.D.Pa., 172 F.Supp. 830; Tatham v. Wabash R. R. Co., 412 Ill. 568, 107 N.E.2d 735, 33 A.L.R.2d 1287, annotation 1295; Lanners v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 344 Ill.App. 123, 99 N.E.2d 705; Zoccano v. Long Island R. R. Co., 298 N.Y. 553, 81 N.E.2d 96; Amann v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co., 130 Mont. 11, 292 P.2d 753; Roebuck v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 99 Kan. 544, 162 P. 1153, L.R.A.1917E, 741; Osment v. Pitcairn, 349 Mo. 137, 159 S.W.2d 666, certiorari denied 320 U.S. 792, 64 S.Ct. 206, 88 L.Ed. 477; Young v. New York Cent. R. R. Co., 88 Ohio App. 352, 88 N.E.2d 220, certiorari denied 339 U.S. 986, 70 S.Ct. 1008, 94 L. Ed. 1388. This rationale has been applied generally in cases in which an employee was injured by the act of a fellow employee in sport or in play. 35 Am.Jur., Master and Servant, § 201, (1941). It has also been applied in cases of this nature brought under the F.E.L.A. which are collected in Annotation 33 A.L.R.2d 1295, 1309 (1954). Hoyt v. Thompson, 7 Cir., 174 F.2d 284, for example, involved injuries to an employee which were caused by two other employees who were wrestling or scuffling over a bar of soap. It was held that the employees, while so engaged, were not acting in furtherance of the railroad's business. Accord, Blunk v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 97 Cal. App.2d 229, 217 P.2d 494; Lavender v. Illinois Cent. R. R. Co., 358 Mo. 1160, 219 S.W.2d 353, certiorari denied 338 U.S. 822, 70 S.Ct. 67, 94 L.Ed. 499; Popadines v. Davis, 213 App.Div. 9, 209 N.Y.S. 689; Reeve v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co., 82 Wash. 268, 144 P. 63, L.R.A. 1915C, 37; Griffin v. Baltimore & O. R. R. Co., 98 W.Va. 168, 126 S.E. 571, 40 A.L.R. 1326.

It is urged that under the provisions of Section 1 of the F.E.L.A., the railroad is liable in all cases if either (1) the injury to a workman results "in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents or employees of such carrier" regardless of whether the fellow employee is acting within the scope of his employment, or (2) the instrumentality which inflicts the injury is actually in use in the carrier's business, regardless of whether the fellow employee using it at the moment of injury is acting within the scope of his employment. While the trend of recent Supreme Court decisions has been to require cases to be submitted to a jury on meager evidence, and these decisions in effect hold that if there is a scintilla of evidence of employer negligence a factual question is presented,³ there is no decision which holds that there can be recovery without some fault on the part of the railroad, or without proof of negligent acts of employees for which the railroad is responsible. There is nothing in Sinkler v. Missouri Pac. R. R. Co., 356 U.S. 326, 78 S.Ct. 758, 2 L.Ed.2d 799, to the contrary. In that case the determinative question was the liability of a carrier for the negligence of an independent contractor performing functions for the carrier essential to the operation of its railroad. There is nothing new in the decision except the holding that an independent contractor is in the same category as any other agent or employee of the carrier.

Although seeming to liberalize the quantum of evidence necessary to constitute a jury question in F.E.L.A. cases, the Supreme Court has been careful to maintain that "the basis of liability under the Act is and remains negligence." Wilkerson v. McCarthy, 336 U.S. 53, 69, 69 S.Ct. 413, 421, 93 L.Ed. 497. For instance, on the same day that the Supreme Court held in three different cases that there was evidence of negligence sufficient to take the cases to a jury or to sustain a verdict in favor of an employee,⁴ the Court held in Herdman v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co., 352 U. S. 518, 77 S.Ct. 455, 456, 1 L.Ed.2d 508, that "a jury question of negligence was not presented by the proofs." We conclude, as did the trial court, that the acts of the fellow employee which caused plaintiff's injury were wholly outside the scope of his employment, intended only to further his own interests, and not those of his employer, and were not chargeable to his employer.

Affirmed.

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...