Seaboard Air Line Railroad Co. v. Connor

• Decision Date: 02 December 1958
• Docket Number: No. 7744.,7744.
• Parties: SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant, v. Lucille E. CONNOR, Administrator of the Estate of Peter Woychak, deceased, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

261 F.2d 656 (1958)

SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant, v. Lucille E. CONNOR, Administrator of the Estate of Peter Woychak, deceased, Appellee.

No. 7744.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued November 12, 1958.

Decided December 2, 1958.

Lewis Thomas Booker and Eppa Hunton, IV, Richmond, Va. (Hunton, Williams, Gay, Moore & Powell, Richmond, Va., on the brief), for appellant.

Sidney L. Berz, Richmond, Va., for appellee.

Before SOBELOFF, Chief Judge, SOPER, Circuit Judge, and R. DORSEY WATKINS, District Judge.

R. DORSEY WATKINS, District Judge.

Lucille E. Connor, as Administrator sic of the Estate of Peter Woychak, (Appellee), brought suit under U.S.C. Title 45, sections 1 et seq., and sections 51 and 59, and the Boiler Inspection Act, against Seaboard Air Line Railroad Company (Appellant) to recover for the benefit of herself as widow, and for the benefit of the two infant daughters of Woychak, damages for fatal injuries received by Woychak while an employee of appellant; and also damages for the physical pain and suffering of Woychak for the seventeen days from his injury to his death. At the conclusion of the evidence the trial court directed a verdict for appellant on the count under the Boiler Inspection Act. The jury then returned a $65,000 verdict for the plaintiff of which it allocated $15,000 to the widow and $25,000 to each daughter, respectively nine and five years old at the time of Woychak's death.

Appellant filed a timely motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or for a new trial. The motion was denied and this appeal followed.

Appellant seeks a reversal on the grounds (a) that there was no evidence from which the jury could have found any negligence on the part of appellant or any violation by it of the Safety Appliance Act; (b) that there was error in permitting certain hypothetical questions to be answered; and (c) the verdict was improper. For the reasons hereinafter set forth, we find no reversible error.

I.

Violation of Safety Appliance Act; Negligence.

The extremely limited scope of review in cases such as this has recently been summarized by this court in Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company v. Boartfield, 4 Cir., 1958, 253 F.2d 733, 734-735, as follows:

"This is a F.E.L.A. case, and our inquiry goes only to the question of whether or not any fault of the railroad contributed, even in the slightest, to the injury. Kernan v. American Dredging Company, 355 U.S. 426, 78 S.Ct. 394, 2 L.Ed.2d 382; Rogers v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., 352 U.S. 500, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493; Webb v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 352 U.S. 512, 77 S.Ct. 451, 1 L.Ed.2d 503; Ferguson v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., 352 U.S. 521, 77 S.Ct. 457, 1 L.Ed.2d 511. See also Stinson v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, 355 U.S. 62, 78 S.Ct. 136, 2 L.Ed.2d 93; Smalls v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, 348 U.S. 946, 75 S. Ct. 439, 99 L.Ed. 740; Shaw v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, 353 U.S. 920, 77 S.Ct. 680, 1 L.Ed.2d 718; McBride v. Toledo Terminal R. Company, 354 U.S. 517, 77 S.Ct. 1398, 1 L.Ed.2d 1534; Ringhiser v. Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company, 354 U.S. 901, 77 S.Ct. 1093, 1 L.Ed.2d 1268; McCracken v. Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad Company, 4 Cir., 240 F.2d 484; New York Central Railroad Company v. Carr, 4 Cir., 251 F.2d 433."

To this list might now be added Moore v. Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, 1958, 358 U.S. 31, 79 S.Ct. 2, 3 L.Ed.2d 24 and Watn v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 3 Cir., 1958, 255 F. 2d 854.

There was testimony from which the jury might, with reason, have found that Woychak was employed by appellant as field brakeman in a train operation requiring the removal of a cut of cars from a track on which they had been standing over night to another track; that under the rules of appellant some brakes would normally have been set on the standing cut; that appellant's rules also cautioned that if a brake were not properly "dogged" is might spin as soon as a succeeding brakeman "starts the release and throw him from the brake platform;" that the switching movement began within seconds after the engine was coupled to the cut, at which time Woychak was on the ground on the west side of the cut of cars; that it was his duty to see that all cars were coupled, and to release handbrakes while the cars were in motion; that while the cars were in motion Woychak was seen to fall to the ground on the east side from in between two cars some seven or eight cars from the engine; that the only thing that would have caused Woychak to go upon the moving cars was to release a handbrake; that he sustained a fracture of the left arm above the elbow caused by a violent wringer-type injury, such as when the arm "is caught in rollers, mashed or twisted". From the foregoing we are not prepared to say that appellee's proofs do not justify with reason the conclusion that Woychak's presence on the moving cars was to release a set brake, and that such brake was defective, or had been defectively set, and that such defect caused or contributed to Woychak's fall.

The testimony as to events following Woychak's fall clearly would justify a jury verdict based upon appellant's negligence. The engineer saw Woychak hit the ground on the east side of the cars, but the engineer testified that as Woychak landed some three feet from the cars, the engineer assumed that Woychak was in a safe place, and merely lightly applied the independent brakes of the engine. When Woychak did not get up, the engineer sounded the emergency whistle and brought the engine to a stop in about one and one-half car lengths, but only after Woychak had reached a sitting posture and had been struck on the chest and side by a journal box of one of the cars. Other...