James v. Pennsylvania R. Co.

• Decision Date: 29 November 1951
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 8202.
• Citation: 101 F. Supp. 241
• Parties: JAMES v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

101 F. Supp. 241

JAMES v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO.

Civ. A. No. 8202.

United States District Court W. D. Pennsylvania.

November 29, 1951.

John E. Evans, Jr., Evans, Ivory & Evans, Pittsburgh, Pa., for plaintiff.

Bruce R. Martin (Dalzell, McFall, Pringle & Bredin), Pittsburgh, Pa., for defendant.

BURNS, District Judge.

After a somewhat extended trial, the jury in the instant case returned a verdict which reads as follows: "And now, to wit: Feb. 28, 1951, we, the Jurors empaneled in the above-entitled case, find (1) the Pennsylvania Railroad Company guilty of negligence. (2) Silicosis contracted prior to 1946 and aggravated by subsequent employment with the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. (3) Plaintiff awarded thirty three thousand dollars."

The motion before this Court for judgment or a new trial primarily raises the question whether plaintiff is barred from recovery because of the three-year statute of limitations provision in the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq. This contention, of course, invites application of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in Urie v. Thompson, 1949, 337 U.S. 163, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed. 1282, which discusses when a cause of action accrues in silicosis cases. In Urie v. Thompson, supra, 337 U.S. at page 170, 69 S.Ct. at page 1024, in view of the humane legislative plan of the statute, the Supreme Court held that the statute of limitations does not begin to run so long as the afflicted individual remains blamelessly ignorant of his silicotic condition. Defendant here has pointed to nothing in the record which would indicate that plaintiff even knew of the silicosis hazard prior to October of 1946, much less that he knew he had himself contracted that disease. Any and all testimony about sinusitis and gastritis ailments of plaintiff is immaterial to the issue whether plaintiff knew he had silicosis prior to October of 1946, in the absence of any showing that there is a connection between silicosis and those other diseases. In fact, the testimony affirmatively discloses that men who worked with plaintiff, such as the boiler foreman and gang leader, were likewise not aware of the danger of silicosis, and that acquaintances of plaintiff first noticed the deterioration of his physical condition in 1947 or 1948.

Consequently, I believe I correctly denied the first point of defendant for charge, in that there was no evidence from which the jury could find knowledge of plaintiff prior to October of 1946. It is noted that, although the burden of proving the defense of the statute of limitations lay with defendant, no such testimony was adduced, perhaps because, under its theory of the facts, defendant vigorously...