CSX Transp., Inc. v. McBride

• Citation: 180 L.Ed.2d 637,564 U.S. 685,131 S.Ct. 2630
• Decision Date: 23 June 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–235.,10–235.
• Parties: CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC., Petitioner, v. Robert McBRIDE.
• Court: United States Supreme Court

564 U.S. 685

131 S.Ct. 2630

180 L.Ed.2d 637

CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC., Petitioner,

v.Robert McBRIDE.

No. 10–235.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued March 28, 2011.

Decided June 23, 2011.

Charles A. Rothfeld, Washington, DC, for Petitioner.

David C. Frederick, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

James A. Bax, Boyle Brasher LLC, St. Louis, MO, Charles A. Rothfeld, Evan M. Tager, Dan Himmelfarb, Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, DC, for Petitioner.

Lawrence M. Mann, Alper & Mann, PC, Washington, D.C., John P. Kujawski, Robert P. Marcus, Kujawski & Associates, PC, O'Fallon, Illinois, David C. Frederick, Derek T. Ho, Brendan J. Crimmins, Daniel G. Bird, Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, P.L.L.C., Washington, D.C., Michael A. Gross, Sher Corwin LLC, St. Louis, Missouri, for Respondent.

Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part III–A.^*

This case concerns the standard of causation applicable in cases arising under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq . FELA renders railroads liable for employees' injuries or deaths " resulting in whole or in part from [carrier] negligence." § 51. In accord with the text and purpose of the Act, this Court's decision in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957), and the uniform view of federal appellate courts, we conclude that the Act does not incorporate "proximate cause" standards developed in nonstatutory common-law tort actions. The charge proper in FELA cases, we hold, simply tracks the language Congress employed, informing juries that a defendant railroad caused or contributed to a plaintiff employee's injury if the railroad's negligence played any part in bringing about the injury.

I

Respondent Robert McBride worked as a locomotive engineer for petitioner CSX Transportation, Inc., which operates an interstate system of railroads. On April 12, 2004, CSX assigned McBride to assist on a local run between Evansville, Indiana, and Mount Vernon, Illinois. The run involved frequent starts and stops to add and remove individual rail cars, a process known as "switching." The train McBride was to operate had an unusual engine configuration: two "wide-body" engines followed by three smaller conventional cabs. McBride protested that the configuration was unsafe, because switching with heavy, wide-body engines required constant use of a hand-operated independent brake. But he was told to take the train as is. About ten hours into the run, McBride injured his hand while using the independent brake. Despite two surgeries and extensive physical therapy, he never regained full use of the hand.

Seeking compensation for his injury, McBride commenced a FELA action against CSX in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. He alleged that CSX was twice negligent: First, the railroad required him to use equipment unsafe for switching; second, CSX failed to train him to operate that equipment. App. 24a–26a. A verdict for McBride would be in order, the District Court instructed, if the jury found that CSX "was negligent" and that the "negligence caused or contributed to" McBride's injury. Id., at 23a.

CSX sought additional charges that the court declined to give. One of the rejected instructions would have required "the plaintiff [to] show that ... the defendant's negligence was a proximate cause of the injury." Id., at 34a. Another would have defined "proximate cause" to mean "any cause which, in natural or probable sequence, produced the injury complained of," with the qualification that a proximate cause "need not be the only cause, nor the last or nearest cause." Id., at 32a.

Instead, the District Court employed, as McBride requested, the Seventh Circuit's pattern instruction for FELA cases, which reads:

"Defendant ‘caused or contributed to’ Plaintiff's injury if Defendant's negligence played a part—no matter how small—in bringing about the injury. The mere fact that an injury occurred does not necessarily mean that the injury was caused by negligence." Id., at 31a.

For this instruction, the Seventh Circuit relied upon this Court's decision in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957). The jury returned a verdict for McBride, setting total damages at $275,000, but reducing that amount by one-third, the percentage the jury attributed to plaintiff's negligence. App. 29a.

CSX appealed to the Seventh Circuit, renewing its objection to the failure to instruct on "proximate cause." Before the appellate court, CSX "maintain[ed] that the correct definition of proximate causation is a ‘direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged.’ " 598 F.3d 388, 393, n. 3 (2010) (quoting Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corporation, 503 U.S. 258, 268, 112 S.Ct. 1311, 117 L.Ed.2d 532 (1992) ). A properly instructed jury, CSX contended, might have found that the chain of causation was too indirect, or that the engine configuration was unsafe because of its propensity to cause crashes during switching, not because of any risk to an engineer's hands. Brief for Defendant–Appellant in No. 08–3557(CA7), pp. 49–52.

The Court of Appeals approved the District Court's instruction and affirmed the judgment entered on the jury's verdict. Rogers had "relaxed the proximate cause requirement" in FELA cases, the Seventh Circuit concluded, a view of Rogers "echoed by every other court of appeals." 598 F.3d, at 399. While acknowledging that a handful of state courts "still appl[ied] traditional formulations of proximate cause in FELA cases," id., at 404, n. 7, the Seventh Circuit said it could hardly declare erroneous an instruction that "simply paraphrase[d] the Supreme Court's own words in Rogers, " id., at 406.

We granted certiorari to decide whether the causation instruction endorsed by the Seventh Circuit is proper in FELA cases. 562 U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 644, 178 L.Ed.2d 475 (2010). That instruction does not include the term "proximate cause," but does tell the jury defendant's negligence must "pla[y] a part—no matter how small—in bringing about the [plaintiff's] injury." App. 31a.

II

A

The railroad business was exceptionally hazardous at the dawn of the twentieth century. As we have recounted, "the physical dangers of railroading ... resulted in the death or maiming of thousands of workers every year," Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Gottshall, 512 U.S. 532, 542, 114 S.Ct. 2396, 129 L.Ed.2d 427 (1994), including 281,645 casualties in the year 1908 alone, S.Rep. No. 61–432, p. 2 (1910). Enacted that same year in an effort to "shif[t] part of the human overhead of doing business from employees to their employers," Gottshall, 512 U.S., at 542, 114 S.Ct. 2396 (internal quotation marks omitted), FELA prescribes:

"Every common carrier by railroad ... shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier ... 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 ... ." 45 U.S.C. § 51 (emphasis added).

Liability under FELA is limited in these key respects: Railroads are liable only to their employees, and only for injuries sustained in the course of employment. FELA's language on causation, however, "is as broad as could be framed." Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 181, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed. 1282 (1949). Given the breadth of the phrase "resulting in whole or in part from the [railroad's] negligence," and Congress' "humanitarian" and "remedial goal[s]," we have recognized that, in comparison to tort litigation at common law, "a relaxed standard of causation applies under FELA." Gottshall, 512 U.S., at 542–543, 114 S.Ct. 2396. In our 1957 decision in Rogers, we described that relaxed standard as follows:

"Under [FELA] the test of a jury case is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought." 352 U.S., at 506, 77 S.Ct. 443.

As the Seventh Circuit emphasized, the instruction the District Court gave in this case, permitting a verdict for McBride if "[railroad] negligence played a part—no matter how small—in bringing about the injury," tracked the language of Rogers. If Rogers prescribes the definition of causation applicable under FELA, that instruction was plainly proper. See Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 172, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989) ("Considerations of stare decisis have special force in the area of statutory interpretation ... ."). While CSX does not ask us to disturb Rogers, the railroad contends that lower courts have overread that opinion. In CSX's view, shared by the dissent, post, at 2649 – 2650, Rogers was a narrowly focused decision that did not touch, concern, much less displace common-law formulations of "proximate cause."

Understanding this argument requires some background. The term "proximate cause" is shorthand for a concept: Injuries have countless causes, and not all should give rise to legal liability. See W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts § 42, p. 273 (5th ed.1984) (hereinafter Prosser and Keeton). "What we ... mean by the word ‘proximate,’ " one noted jurist has explained, is simply this: "[B]ecause of convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain point." Palsgraf v. Long Island R. Co.,

248 N.Y. 339, 352, 162 N.E. 99, 103 (1928) (Andrews, J., dissenting). Common-law "proximate cause" formulations varied, and were often both constricted and difficult to comprehend. See T. Cooley, Law of Torts 73–77, 812–813 (2d ed. 1888) (describing, for example, prescriptions precluding recovery in the event of any "intervening" cause or any contributory negligence). Some courts cut off liability if a "proximate cause" was not the sole...