Coray v. Southern Pac Co

• Decision Date: 03 January 1949
• Docket Number: No. 54,54
• Citation: 93 L.Ed. 208,335 U.S. 520,69 S.Ct. 275
• Parties: CORAY v. SOUTHERN PAC. CO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

335 U.S. 520

69 S.Ct. 275

93 L.Ed. 208

CORAY

v SOUTHERN PAC. CO.

No. 54.

Argued Dec. 6, 7, 1948.

Decided Jan. 3, 1949.

Mr. Parnell Black, of Salt Lake City, Utah, for petitioner.

Mr. A. H. Nebeker, of Salt Lake City, Utah, for respondent.

Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

This action was brought in a Utah state court under the Federal Safety Appliance and Federal Employers' Liability Acts¹ to recover damages for the death of Frank Lucus, an employee of the respendent railroad. The decedent's death occurred when a one-man flat-top motorcar crashed into the back end of an eighty-two car freight train on a main-line track at a point near Lemay, Utah. Both train and motorcar were being operated in an eastward direction on railroad business. The train unexpectedly stopped just before the crash occurred because the air in its brake lines escaped, thereby locking the brakes. The air had escaped because of a violation of the Federal Safety Appliance Act in that the threads on a valve were so badly worn that a nut became disconnected. When the brakes locked, the motorcar was several hundred feet behind the freight train moving at about the same rate as the train, not an excessive rate under ordinary circumstances. The motor was equipped with brakes which had they been applied could have stopped the car within a distance of about one hundred feet. But the decedent who was in control of the car did not apply the brakes. Apparently he and another employee with him were looking backward toward a block signal and therefore did not know the train had stopped.²

Despite the proof that the train had stopped because of the railroad's violation of the Federal Safety Appliance Act, the state trial judge directed the jury to return a verdict in the railroad's favor. This resulted from the court's holding that the Act didn't apply to Mr. Lucus, that the Act's protection against defective brakes did not extend to employees following and crashing into a train which stopped suddenly because of defective brake appliances.

On appeal the State Supreme Court affirmed. Utah, 185 P.2d 963, 969. That court agreed with the trial court's interpretation of the Safety Appliance Act and also held that the evidence failed to show that the defective appliance was the 'legal' cause of the crash and of the death of decedent. The obvious importance of the restrictive interpretation given to the two federal Acts prompted us to grant certiorari.

First. We cannot agree with the State Supreme Court's holding that although the railroad ran its train with defective brakes it thereby 'violated no duty owing' to the decedent. That court said that the object of the Safety Appliance Act 'insofar as brakes might be concerned, is not to protect employees from standing, but from moving trains.'

We do not view the Act's purpose so narrowly. It commands railroads not to run trains with defective brakes. An abrupt or unexpected stop due to bad brakes might be equally dangerous to employees and others as a failure to stop a train because of bad brakes. And this Act, fairly interpreted, must be held to protect all who need protection from dangerous results due to maintenance or operation of congressionally prohibited defective appliances Fairport, P. & E. R. Co. v. Meredith, 292 U.S. 589, 597, 54 S.Ct. 826, 829, 78 L.Ed. 1446. Liability of a railroad under the Safety Appliance Act for injuries inflicted as a result of the Act's violation follows from the unlawful use of prohibited defective equipment 'not from the position the employee may be in, or the work which he may be doing at the moment when he is injured.' Brady v. Terminal R. Ass'n, 303 U.S. 10, 16, 58 S.Ct. 426, 429, 430, 82 L.Ed. 614; Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Layton, 243 U.S. 617, 621, 37 S.Ct. 456, 457, 61 L.Ed. 931. In this case where undisputed evidence established that the train suddenly stopped because of defective air-brake appliances, petitioner was entitled to recover if this defective equipment was the sole or a contributory proximate cause of the decedent employee's death. Davis v. Wolfe, 263 U.S. 239, 243, 44 S.Ct. 64, 66, 68 L.Ed. 284; Spokane & I.E.R. Co. v. Campbell, 241 U.S. 497, 509, 510, 36 S.Ct. 683, 689, 60 L.Ed. 1125.

Second. The Utah Supreme Court reviewed the evidence here and held as a matter of law that the defective equipment did not proximately cause or contribute to the decedent's death. That court discussed distinctions between 'proximate cause' in the...