Humphries v. Pittsburgh and Lake Erie R. Co.

• Citation: 476 A.2d 919,328 Pa.Super. 119
• Parties: Howard H. HUMPHRIES v. PITTSBURGH AND LAKE ERIE RAILROAD COMPANY, Consolidated Rail Corporation and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company. Appeal of PITTSBURGH & LAKE ERIE RAILROAD COMPANY.
• Decision Date: 06 July 1984
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

Page 919

476 A.2d 919

328 Pa.Super. 119

Howard H. HUMPHRIES v. PITTSBURGH AND LAKE ERIE RAILROAD COMPANY, Consolidated Rail

Corporation and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company.

Appeal of PITTSBURGH & LAKE ERIE RAILROAD COMPANY.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Jan. 25, 1984.

Filed April 27, 1984.

Reargument Denied July 6, 1984.

Alan M. Shapiro, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

John P. Gismondi, Pittsburgh, for appellee.

David P. Helwig, Pittsburgh, for Consolidated, participating party.

Before WIEAND, TAMILIA and POPOVICH, JJ.

POPOVICH, Judge:

This is an appeal from the Judgment of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, entered following an en banc Order denying appellant's (Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Co.'s) motion for judgment non obstante veredicto. Pa.R.App.P. 301(a). We affirm in a case of first impression.

On October 6, 1978, plaintiff-appellee (Howard H. Humphries) filed a complaint in trespass alleging, in relevant part, that:

THIRD: At all times relevant to this suit, the defendant[-appellant] was a common carrier of freight for hire and by rail and was engaged in interstate commerce.

* * *

* * *

FIFTH: Jurisdiction is conferred upon this court under and by virtue of the provisions of the Federal Employers' Liability Act of Congress ....

SIXTH: On or about May 19, 1978, at approximately 12:30 p.m., the plaintiff was performing his duties as a track laborer for the defendant on the defendant's single main track, Mon River Bridge, Homestead, Pennsylvania. Plaintiff was engaged in work which was within the scope of his employment. The plaintiff, along with three other servants of the defendant, was using a rail stretcher to perform his assigned duties. During the course of this activity, a bolt that was attached to the rail stretcher broke and the plaintiff was caused to fall to the ground by reason of the defendant's negligence with the result that the plaintiff suffered severe injuries and damages ....

In conclusion, a claim for damages in an amount in excess of $10,000.00 was sought.

Thereafter, following the disposition of various pretrial items (e.g., interrogatories, statements and depositions), the case proceeded to trial and a jury found for the plaintiff in the amount of $12,400.00. The plaintiff followed this with a submission of a motion seeking prejudgment interest pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure No. 238. ¹ The court entered an order that remolded the verdict by "adding delay damages in the amount of $3,203.00, reflecting a total award of $15,603.00." What ensued was the filing of an appeal questioning the propriety of the award as to the delay damages.

More particularly, the issue preserved for our review ² concerns whether Pennsylvania's Rule 238 may be invoked in a Federal Employers' Liability Act ³ suit heard in a court of common pleas. We believe it can be.

Our discussion starts with the proposition that state courts are forbidden from discriminating against a federal cause of action. This prohibition is manifested in the supremacy clause of Article VI of the United States Constitution, see Testa v. Katt, 330 U.S. 386, 67 S.Ct. 810, 91 L.Ed. 967 (1947), and requires state courts to enforce federal law. Household Consumer Discount Co. v. Vespaziani, 490 Pa. 209, 415 A.2d 689 (1980). Since Congress has made available the state courts, as well as federal ones, ⁴ for the vindication of that right, it is our task to determine whether federal or state law governs the resolution of a given question concerning the federally created cause of action. Id.

Instantly, this means that "[s]ince [Humphries'] claim arises under a federal statute, whether prejudgment interest will be allowed is initially a question of federal law and not the law of the forum state. See Wallis v. Pan American Petroleum Corporation, 384 U.S. 63, 86 S.Ct. 1301, 16 L.Ed.2d 369 (1966); 1A Moore's Federal Practice §§ 0.318, 0.323 (2nd ed 1959)." ⁵ Southern Pacific Co. v. Miller Abattoir Co., 454 F.2d 357, 362 (3rd Cir.1972).

Thus, we wish to emphasize that, albeit a federal court sitting in diversity must look to local law to determine the availability of prejudgment interest, see Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941); Schneider v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 658 F.2d 835, 855 (U.S.App.D.C.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 994, 102 S.Ct. 1622, 71 L.Ed.2d 855 (1982), such is not the rule in cases arising under federal law. See Furtado v. Bishop, 604 F.2d 80, 97 (1st Cir.1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1035, 100 S.Ct. 710, 62 L.Ed.2d 672 (1980). Applying this precept to the case sub judice, we find "[i]t has long been settled that questions concerning the measure of damages in an FELA action are federal in character. This is true even if the action is brought in state court." ⁶ (Citations omitted) Norfolk and Western Railway Co. v. Liepelt, 444 U.S. 490, 493, 100 S.Ct. 755, 757, 62 L.Ed.2d 689 (1980). Our own decisional law on the subject is not inconsistent with such a pronouncement. See, e.g., Hogarty v. Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co., 255 Pa. 236, 240, 99 A. 741 (1916) ("The Federal Employers' Liability Act of 1908 supercedes the laws of the states upon all matters within its scope, and, in cases involving accidents to the employees of railroad companies, when engaged in interstate commerce, the state laws must be regarded as nonexistent." (Citations omitted)); Snyder v. Penn Central Transportation Co., 296 Pa.Super. 69, 73, 442 A.2d 300, 302 (1982) ("In a F.E.L.A. case, federal rather than state law governs ...."); Ignacic v. Penn Central Transportation Co., 291 Pa.Super. 431, 436 A.2d 192 (1981) (semble); see also Schnars v. Union Railroad Co., 410 Pa. 538, 189 A.2d 884 (1963) (Although under Pennsylvania law an employee could not sue his employer, such is not the case under federal law because of the Federal Employers' Liability Act).

However, as is conceded by all concerned, and a review of the statute confirms this, the Federal Employers' Liability Act makes neither a provision allowing nor forbidding prejudgment interest such as was awarded by the trial court here. Despite this absence of an unequivocal prohibition against interest in the Act itself, we have been directed to the general interest statute governing federal civil actions, 28 U.S.C. § 1961. See Murphy v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 63 F.Supp. 928 (E.D.N.Y.1945). Section 1961 reads, in relevant part:

Interest shall be allowed on any money judgment in a civil case recovered in a district court .... Such interest shall be calculated from the date of the entry of the judgment, at the rate allowed by State law. ⁷

It is true that the preceding has been construed, in the context of the Federal Employers' Liability Act in Louisiana & Arkansas Ry. Co. v. Pratt, 142 F.2d 847 (5th Cir.1944), to encompass post judgment interest, or, at the most, an award of interest tabulated from the date a verdict is rendered to the date judgment is entered. This fact has been seized upon by the defendant-appellant as the cornerstone for its proposition that the Act's silence on the question of "interest", even reading Section 1961 liberally, does not sanction the awarding of prejudgment interest. Id.

Although the Fifth Circuit's position in Pratt has been followed in a number of state courts, ⁸ we notice that most recently this stance, as it affects Section 1961 and federal causes of action in regard thereto, has been altered. For example, in Olsen v. Shell Oil Co., 708 F.2d 976 (5th Cir.1983), an employee brought suit against his employer under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) for injuries he sustained while on the job. The employer contended, inter alia, that the district court should not have awarded prejudgment interest in light of Section 1961's prohibition against same, and he cited a number of Fifth Circuit cases in support of the contention. Circuit Judge Patrick E. Higgenbotham, speaking for the Court, admitted that there existed a conflict in the circuit as to the law on this point.

In response to this diversity of opinion that had manifested itself in the circuit, the Court opted to renounce its former, unfavorable position on the issue of prejudgment interest and adopted, instead, a posture consonant with that espoused in Ellis v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 650 F.2d 94 (5th Cir.1981). In doing so, the Court made statements that are quite germane to the case at bar; viz.:

[I]n Ellis, an OCSLA wrongful death case, we upheld a denial of prejudgment interest once again, but only on the ground that the district court had "properly exercised its discretion." 650 F.2d at 98. The panel there read 28 U.S.C. § 1961 as mandating postjudgment interest but also permitting prejudgment interest. Thus, it concluded that the district court "could have left intact its award of prejudgment interest if it found 'other principles of law' which justified the award ..." Id. (quoting Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Texas Eastern Transmission Corp., 551 F.2d 943, 944 (5th Cir.1977).

We think Ellis is the better view. Ellis reads the federal interest statute as permissive on the matter of prejudgment interest; Berry [v. Sladco, Inc., 495 F.2d 523 (5th Cir.1974) ] and Aymond [v. Texaco, Inc., 554 F.2d 206 (5th Cir.1977) ] read it as prohibitory. The problem with the latter reading is that 28 U.S.C. § 1961 governs all civil actions in federal district courts, Gele v. Wilson, 616 F.2d 146, 148 (5th Cir.1980), except diversity cases, Degelos Bros. Grain Corp. v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. of Texas, 498 F.2d 1238, 1239 (5th Cir.1974), yet prejudgment interest has frequently been awarded in nondiversity cases without express statutory authority (for example, suits in the admiralty). Indeed, Berry and Aymond appear to contravene the almost universal view that "section 1961 does not by its silence bar the awarding of prejudgment interest ..." Bricklayers Pension Trust Fund v. Taiariol...