Silva v. Union Pacific Railroad Co.
Decision Date | 28 December 2000 |
Docket Number | No. A088552.,A088552. |
Citation | 102 Cal.Rptr.2d 668,85 Cal.App.4th 1024 |
Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Parties | Jose SILVA et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Defendant and Respondent. |
Perry S. Dobson, Hayward, Counsel for Appellants.
Barry & Randolph, William C. Barry, Thomas A. Cregger, Michelle J. Drees, Sacramento, Counsel for Respondent.
Teenager Lucas Silva was killed when he was hit by a train owned and operated by defendant Union Pacific Railroad Company (Union Pacific). His parents, plaintiffs Jose and Lupe Silva, filed a wrongful death action. Identified in the complaint as "significant factors in the death of [the] deceased" were "negligent operation" of the train and the failure "to maintain fences protecting the public from the train tracks [sic ]."
The heart of Union Pacific's litigation strategy has been the preemption of state common law liability by virtue of the extensive federal regulation of the railroad industry. The key to that strategy has been to establish that the train that killed Lucas Silva was traveling within a federally-authorized speed limit. Union Pacific obtained a summary judgment on the ground that it had established that the train had been operating within that speed limit. That judgment was reversed because the evidentiary showing establishing the speed limit was insufficient. (Silva v. Union Pacific Railroad Company (Sep. 30, 1997, A076412) [nonpub. opn.].)
When the cause was returned to the superior court and called for trial, both sides made a number of competing in limine motions. The first category of motions concerned whether Union Pacific should or should not be precluded from offering evidence that it had no duty to fence its right-of-way at the accident site. The second category involved motions relating to the preemption issue and ancillary matters such as speed, brakes, and track classification. After hearing extensive argument on the motions, the trial court ruled that Union Pacific had no duty to fence. At the conclusion of an evidentiary hearing the court ruled that Union Pacific had established federal preemption. After plaintiffs advised the court that they were "unable to proceed, solely because of the rulings on [the] motions in limine," the parties stipulated to a judgment for Union Pacific that would allow plaintiffs to obtain appellate review of those rulings. Following entry of that judgment, plaintiffs perfected this timely appeal.
Plaintiffs' attack on the first ruling— that Union Pacific had no duty to fence off the right-of-way through which Lucas Silva entered upon the tracks—concedes that the issue has previously been decided in favor of railroads, but plaintiffs argue the issue is ripe for reexamination in light of an intervening decision by our Supreme Court.
Up until 1968 it was generally settled throughout the country that railroads had no duty to fence access to their tracks in order to prevent injury to unauthorized entrants, particularly children. (See, e.g., Holland v. Baltimore & O.R. Co. (App. D.C.1981) 431 A.2d 597, 603, fn. 11, and decisions cited; Annot., Duty of Railroad to Fence Track as against Children (1922) 16 A.L.R. 944.) California analyzed the issue as one involving attractive nuisance as defined by section 339 of the Restatement of Torts. The leading California decision had this to say: (Joslin v. Southern Pac, Co. (1961) 189 Cal.App.2d 382, 387-388, 11 Cal.Rptr. 267; accord, Durham v. City of Los Angeles (1979) 91 Cal.App.3d 567, 574, 154 Cal. Rptr. 243; see also Herrera v. Southern Pacific Ry. Co. (1961) 188 Cal.App.2d 441, 450,10 Cal.Rptr. 575.)
Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561 is the celebrated decision abolishing distinctions in the duty of care owed by a landowner to trespassers, licensees, or invitees. (Beard v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. (1970) 4 Cal. App.3d 129, 135-136, 84 Cal.Rptr. 449.)1
Rowland listed a number of factors to be considered in determining whether to allow an exception to the general principle that a person is liable for injury caused by the failure to exercise reasonable care—"the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved." (Rowland v. Christian, supra, 69 Cal.2d 108, 112-113, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561.)
(Gregorian v. National Convenience Stores, Inc. (1985) 174 Cal.App.3d 944, 948, 220 Cal.Rptr. 302.) We have found no authority subsequent to Rowland holding that a railroad has no duty as a matter of law to fence its tracks. An unusual complication in our assaying this inquiry is the unusual manner in which the issue comes to us.
Our Supreme Court has decided issues of duty in three contexts: (1) by demurrer, which takes facts as alleged in the complaint (e.g., Ballard v Uribe (1986) 41 Cal.3d 564, 224 Cal.Rptr. 664, 715 P.2d 624; Hedlund v. Superior Court (1983) 34 Cal.3d 695, 194 Cal.Rptr. 805, 669 P.2d 41); (2) on summary judgment granted on the basis of evidentiary showings by the parties (e.g., Kentucky Fried Chicken of Cat, Inc. v. Superior Court (1997) 14 Cal.4th 814, 59 Cal.Rptr.2d 756, 927 P.2d 1260; Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center (1993) 6 Cal.4th 666, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137, 863 P.2d 207; Rowland v. Christian, supra, 69 Cal.2d 108, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561); or (3) after a full trial (e.g., Weirum v. RKO General, Inc. (1975) 15 Cal.3d 40, 123 Cal.Rptr. 468, 539 P.2d 36). In each of these contexts the court has an established factual universe, contradicted or not. That is what is lacking here.
The trial court appears to have made its ruling that "there's no duty to fence" solely on the basis of the moving papers of the parties' respective in limine motions and argument from counsel. Although both sides made evidence-related or factual references in those papers, neither provided much in the nature of a factual context. Plaintiffs' counsel made what would ordinarily look like an offer of proof,2 but there is no indication whether it played any part in the trial court's ruling. In neither the parties' papers nor the reporter's transcript of the arguments on those motions is there any discussion of the Rowland factors quoted above. To judge by the remarks of plaintiffs' counsel, the issue of foreseeability would figure prominently in the analysis of those factors. (See fn. 2, ante.) With the basis of the facts used in determining foreseeability thus...
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