Fravel v. Pennsylvania R. Co.

• Citation: 104 F. Supp. 84
• Decision Date: 31 March 1952
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 5399.
• Parties: FRAVEL v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

104 F. Supp. 84

FRAVEL v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO.

Civ. No. 5399.

United States District Court D. Maryland.

March 31, 1952.

Maurice J. Pressman, of Baltimore, Md., and Richter, Lord & Farage, of Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.

Hall Hammond and Clayton W. Daneker, of Baltimore, Md., for defendant.

COLEMAN, Chief Judge.

This is a personal injury suit brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. §§ 51-60 inclusive, and the Safety Appliance Acts, 45 U.S.C.A. §§ 1-43 inclusive. It is before the Court on a motion of the defendant to dismiss the action.

The material facts as alleged by the complaint which, on the motion to dismiss, are to be treated as admitted by defendant, are as follows: On July 6, 1940, about 12:45 a. m., while the plaintiff was employed by the defendant as a freight brakeman, on its Cumberland Valley, Pennsylvania, branch, and while acting as a flagman on a train which was then waiting at a switch, a light engine operated by defendant on a westbound track crashed into the train on which the plaintiff was working, as a result of which the plaintiff was thrown about with great force, striking his back on the floor. During the two weeks following the accident, the plaintiff was examined on several occasions at the Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Hospital, by doctors for the defendant, who took x-rays of his back at the defendant's direction, and told him that he had no serious injuries. Approximately two weeks after the accident, the plaintiff was informed by the defendant's claim agent that he had conferred with the defendant's doctors and that the medical information available to the railroad was to the effect that there was nothing wrong with the plaintiff; that he would have nothing to fear as to the after-effects of the accident; that if any injuries should show up later as a result of the accident, the defendant would compensate him for any damages so sustained, and that if the parties were unable to agree on the amount of the damages, he could bring suit against the defendant at any time. In reliance upon these statements and representations of the defendant's doctors and the defendant's claim agent, the plaintiff executed a release to the defendant for which he obtained no consideration, except payment of $50 as his wages for the week that he had lost from work as a result of the accident.

Plaintiff's back continued to trouble him and he continued to experience severe pain in the region of his injury. From time to time he consulted the defendant's doctors regarding this, but he was always informed that he had no serious injury and that his pain would abate with time. The various railroad doctors that the plaintiff consulted also advised him, as time went on, that his pain was the result of a rheumatic condition. Finally, on February 17, 1949, more than eight and a half years after the accident, the plaintiff consulted a physician not connected with the railroad, who diagnosed his back condition as a herniation of the 4th lumbar intervertebral disc, with compression of the lumbar nerve roots, and informed him that this injury would necessitate an operation for the removal of the disc and fusion of the spine, and that in any event, his injury was of a serious and permanent nature. An operation was performed which confirmed this diagnosis. On June 29, 1951, almost eleven years after the accident, the plaintiff commenced this action, claiming damages in the amount of $62,500. The defendant has moved to dismiss it on three grounds: (1) that the alleged cause of action was not commenced within three years from the day it accrued as provided in Section 6 of the Federal Employers' Liability Act, as amended, 45 U.S. C.A. § 56; (2) that the release which plaintiff executed after the accident is valid and constitutes a complete discharge of defendant from all further liability to plaintiff in connection with the accident; and (3) that the plaintiff is barred by laches from prosecuting this action.

Taking up these grounds alleged by the defendant for dismissal of the action in the order just stated, Section 6, as amended, of the Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 56, provides that "No action shall be maintained under this chapter unless commenced within three years from the day the cause of action accrued." In Scarborough v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 178 F.2d 253, 15 A.L.R.2d 491, a decision of the Court of Appeals of this, the Fourth Circuit, it was held on a motion by defendant to dismiss the action, that this three year limitation was tolled by the alleged deliberate fraud of a claim agent of the defendant railroad in inducing a seventeen year old boy to delay filing suit beyond the three year period of limitation, by informing him and his father that he would have three years after reaching the age of twenty-one within which to bring the action. The Court said, 178 F.2d 253, at page 255: "We are thus faced with the important question whether the time limitation of the Act is tolled by the deliberate fraud of the defendant, practiced on an infant, which induced the plaintiff to delay the filing of his action beyond the time limitation set out in the Act. We think the District Court erred by answering this question in the negative." Then the Court, after analyzing the distinctions between the two classes of statutes of limitations, i. e., the remedial and the substantive, said, 178 F.2d 258-259:

"We have endeavored to set out fairly the law with which we are here concerned, as it has been stated in the cases decided by the courts. If dicta be considered, the weight of such primary authority appears to favor the view expressed by the District Court. In none of these cases, does the opinion fairly face, with an adequate discussion of the question on principle, the precise problem now before us. The cases cited as favoring the appellee based their holdings on the narrow technical distinction between the two types of statutes of limitations and then state baldly that, by virtue of this legalistic distinction, fraud does not toll the running of a statute of limitations which is of the substantive type. Under these circumstances, we do not consider ourselves bound by this seeming weight of judicial authority. We, accordingly, feel free to decide this case on principle.

"Remedial statutes should be liberally construed and should be interpreted (when that is possible) in a manner tending to discourage attempted evasions by wrongdoers. And unless the statute so requires with crystal clarity, it should not be so applied as to negative broad principles well settled in our law by a long series of decisions.

* * * * * *

"The Act contains this provision:

"`Any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any common carrier to exempt itself from any liability created by this chapter, shall to that extent be void'. * * *

"For a broad interpretation of this provision, see Duncan v. Thompson, 315 U.S. 1, 6, 62 S.Ct. 422, 424, 86 L.Ed. 575, in which the Supreme Court went very far to stamp out `ingenious evasions of the statutory responsibilities'. If these doctrines have any virtue, they must apply in the situation set out by the plaintiff's complaint herein, where a wily claim agent sought by a deliberate fraud to take away the legal rights of an infant, who acted without the aid of independent advice.

"The decisions in the Osbourne Osbourne v. United States, 2 Cir., 164 F.2d 767 and Frabutt Frabutt v. New York, C. & St. L. R. Co., D.C., 84 F.Supp. 460 cases, supra, show clearly that there is a chink in the supposedly impregnable armor of the substantive time limitation of the Act. If, as those cases decided, there is one exception (war), surely the infinite variety of human experience will disclose others. Those cases demonstrate that a claim under the Act is not a legal child born with a life span of three years, whose life must then expire, absolutely, for all purposes and under all circumstances. True it is that war physically prevents access to the courts, however anxious a litigant may be to bring suit. Fraud, however, as in the instant case, may be equally as effective in preventing one from seasonably suing on his claim; and, if permitted to succeed, it affords a continuous temptation thus to defeat the primary purposes for which Congress passed the Act.

"Judge Frank in the Osbourne case and Judge Parker in the...