Hines v. Illinois Central Gulf R.R.

• Decision Date: 16 February 1983
• Docket Number: No. 67710,67710
• Citation: 330 N.W.2d 284
• Parties: Donald R. HINES, Jr., Appellee, v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL GULF RAILROAD, Appellant, Damon Gene Davis, Defendant, and City of New Hartford, Iowa, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 284

330 N.W.2d 284

Donald R. HINES, Jr., Appellee, v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL GULF RAILROAD, Appellant Damon Gene Davis, Defendant, and City of New Hartford, Iowa, Appellant.

No. 67710.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 16, 1983.

Don W. Burington and Joel J. Yunek of Laird, Burington, Bovard, Heiny, McManigal & Walters, Mason City, for appellant, City of New Hartford, Iowa.

James D. DeKoster and Joel J. Yunek of Swisher & Cohrt, Waterloo, for appellant, Illinois Central Gulf R.R.

C.A. Frerichs, Waterloo, for appellee.

Bennett A. Webster of Gamble, Riepe, Burt, Webster & Davis, Des Moines, for the amicus curiae Chicago & Northwestern Transp. Co.

Considered by LeGRAND, P.J., and McCORMICK, McGIVERIN, LARSON and SCHULTZ, JJ.

SCHULTZ, Justice.

This appeal involves an action for damages arising out of an auto-train collision. We must decide whether the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) or the fact finder in a judicial proceeding should determine whether a railroad crossing is extra-hazardous. This issue depends upon the applicability of Iowa Code section 307.26(5)(b). The pertinent language in this section provides: "[a] railroad crossing shall not be found to be particularly hazardous for any purpose unless the [DOT] has determined it to be particularly hazardous." ¹ The district court interpreted this language to place on the DOT the exclusive and binding determination of the crossing's status, thereby excluding a judicial determination of the matter, but it then eliminated that duty by holding that this portion of the section was unconstitutional. We hold that this section does not provide an exclusive and binding means of determining whether the crossing is extra-hazardous in tort actions arising from crossing accidents. Although we disagree with the district court's determination that the statute is applicable in such actions, we reach the same result and affirm.

There are no factual disputes; this appeal concerns questions of law. Plaintiff, Donald R. Hines, Jr., was a passenger in an automobile that collided with a train owned by Illinois Central Gulf Railroad (railroad) at a crossing located in or near the city limits of New Hartford (city). The crossing was protected only by the standard crossbuck sign, and no city ordinance required any additional protective devices.

Plaintiff filed this action against his driver, the city, and the railroad. In his counts against the city and the railroad he alleged that the crossing was unsafe.

Plaintiff filed a motion to adjudicate law points and an amended motion in which he made it clear that at trial he would assert that the crossing involved was extrahazardous and that the railroad had a duty to install protective devices in addition to the crossbuck. Defendants argued in their resistance and amended resistance that section 307.26(5)(b) vests in the DOT the exclusive authority to determine which crossings are particularly hazardous, and since the DOT had not done so, the crossing in question is not particularly hazardous and the railroad has no duty to install any additional protective devices. Thus, they argued, the question whether the crossing was particularly hazardous was not to be determined by a jury.

We granted interlocutory appeal from the district court ruling on the motion to adjudicate law points. This ruling held that the previously quoted portion of section 307.26(5)(b) was void as it violated Iowa Constitution article III, section 1, by delegating both legislative and judicial power to an executive agency. This ruling also concluded that this portion of the section violated Iowa Constitution article III, section 29, in that the subject of this portion of the section was not expressed in the title of the act. As previously indicated, we do not reach the merits of these constitutional claims. We consider constitutional issues on appeal only when another question is not decisive. Ehlinger v. Mardorf, 285 N.W.2d 27, 28 (Iowa 1979).

Initially, we deem it helpful to examine statutory and case law that has governed railroad crossing litigation for nearly a century. Pursuant to the statute the railroad is required to erect a warning sign at every railroad crossing, Iowa Code § 327G.2 (1981), and to sound a horn and ring a bell when reaching the crossing. Iowa Code § 327G.13 (1981). Additional common law duties of care have been required of railroads at extra-hazardous crossings. Glanville v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co., 190 Iowa 174, 179-82, 180 N.W. 152, 155 (1920), relying on Grand Trunk Railroad Co. v. Ives, 144 U.S. 408, 12 S.Ct. 679, 36 L.Ed. 485 (1892) and Annaker v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co., 81 Iowa 267, 47 N.W. 68 (1890). In Maier v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 234 N.W.2d 388 (Iowa 1975), we reviewed the previously quoted statutes and then restated the evaluation of our common law as follows:

Case law on a railroad's duty to give warnings in addition to minimum statutory requirements has become well settled. It was summarized in Wickman v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 253 Iowa 912, 917, 114 N.W.2d 627, 629-30 (1962) as follows:

... [A] railroad company is not required to install a signaling device or station a flagman at every railway crossing.... [S]tatutory requirements for warnings at railway crossing as the crossbucks, ringing the bell and blowing the whistle, are minimum only; ... conditions may exist which require more.

A third principle, elementary of course, is that in this class of cases our duty is not to decide whether the crossing in question was in fact extraordinarily hazardous so that some warning beyond the statutory requirements was called for, but only to say whether there was substantial evidence from which a jury might so find.

The general rule also is that whether the condition of a crossing, with its surroundings, is such as to call for additional warning devices, or flagmen, is a question for the jury unless reasonable minds could reach only one conclusion from the evidence. (Authorities omitted).

Id. at 391. In 1976 we reaffirmed and applied these principles in Kuper v. Chicago & Northwestern Transportation Co., 290 N.W.2d 903, 905 (Iowa 1980).

There is no dispute that the railroad remains subject to the minimum statutory requirements. It contends, however, that legislative amendment to section 307.26(5) in 1977 altered the common law approach by taking away from the trial fact finder and giving to the DOT the duty to determine whether a crossing is extra-hazardous. Prior to 1977, that section stated:

307.26 Railroad transportation division. The administrator of the railroad transportation division shall have the following duties and responsibilities:

....

5. Advise and assist the director in the conduct of research on railroad-highway grade crossings and encourage and develop a safety program in order to reduce injuries or fatalities.

The 1977 amendment to section 307.26(5) added subsections (a) and (b), 1977 Iowa Acts ch. 103 § 2, so that it now reads:

5. Advise and assist the director in the conduct of research on railroad-highway grade crossings and encourage and develop a safety program in order to reduce injuries or fatalities including, but not limited to, the following:

a. The implementation of a program of constructing rumble strips at grade crossings on selected hard surface roads.

b. The establishment of standards for warning devices for particularly hazardous crossings or for classes of crossings on highways, which standards are designed to reduce injuries, fatalities and property damage. Such standards shall regulate the use of warning devices and signs which shall be in addition to the requirements of section 327G.2. Implementation of such standards shall be the responsibility of the government agency or department or political subdivision having jurisdiction and control of the highway and such implementation shall be deemed adequate for the purposes of railroad grade crossing protection. The department, or the political subdivision having jurisdiction, may direct the installation of temporary protection while awaiting installation of permanent protection. A railroad crossing shall not be found to be particularly hazardous for any purpose unless the department has determined it to be particularly hazardous.

(Emphasis added). We were first called upon to interpret the amended statute in Sullivan v. Chicago & Northwestern Transportation Co., 326 N.W.2d 320 (Iowa 1982), although we had previously noted in Kuper that the amended rule had been adopted too recently to affect our holding in that case. Kuper, 290 N.W.2d at 906.

In Sullivan we scrutinized subsections (a) and (b) of section 307.26(5). We stated:

The subsections are stated as examples only of the sort of advice and assistance the administrator of the railroad division is expected to provide to the DOT director. It is apparent that other administrative programs aimed at the reduction of injuries or fatalities were also contemplated.

The railroad points to the broad language in the last sentence of the amended provision: "A railroad crossing shall not be found to be particularly hazardous for any purpose unless the department has determined it to be particularly hazardous." (Emphasis added.) The railroad maintains that the legislature wrote "sweeping changes into the railroad grade crossing law" by taking the extra-hazardous crossing determination from juries and placing it in the hands of the administrative agency. It argues the change was warranted by "modern day safety needs" of rail and motor traffic, as well as the "complex engineering considerations present at every railroad crossing." It is argued that the legislature was dissatisfied with our past application of the common law rules which, it is said, resulted in virtually all hazardous crossing cases being submitted for determination by a jury.

It seems curious that, if the legislature really intended the crucial and...