Union Pacific R. Co. v. Williams

• Decision Date: 06 June 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-0231.,01-0231.
• Citation: 85 S.W.3d 162
• Parties: UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Seymore WILLIAMS, Respondent.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 162

85 S.W.3d 162

UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Seymore WILLIAMS, Respondent.

No. 01-0231.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued January 9, 2002.

Decided June 6, 2002.

Rehearing Denied August 22, 2002.

Cathleen C. Herasimchuk, Rusty Hardin & Associates, Kim E. Whittington, Norma G. Davenport, General Solicitor, Fred Stuart Wilson, Union Pacific Railroad Company, Houston, for Petitioner.

Mark T. Berry, Jones & Granger, David A. Furlow, Thompson & Knight LLP, Houston, for Respondent.

Justice BAKER delivered the opinion of the Court.

Seymour Williams, a former employee with Union Pacific Railroad Company, brought a Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA) claim against Union Pacific based on an injury Williams suffered at a train derailment site. See 45 U.S.C. § 51. The issue is whether the trial court erred in refusing to submit Union Pacific's proposed foreseeability instruction in the jury charge. The jury held for Williams, and the trial court rendered judgment on the verdict. The court of appeals affirmed and held that the trial court properly refused Union Pacific's proposed instruction because it confused foreseeability with causation. 85 S.W.3d 300, 307. The court of appeals explained that the proposed instruction would have improperly required the jury to consider whether Union Pacific proximately caused Williams' injury. 85 S.W.3d at 307.

We disagree that Union Pacific's proposed instruction confused foreseeability with causation. Rather, we conclude that the proposed instruction relates to Union Pacific's duty to Williams to use reasonable care at the derailment site. Because there is disputed evidence about whether Union Pacific knew or should have known the train derailment site created a dangerous situation that could result in Williams' injury, the trial court should have submitted a foreseeability instruction as it related to Union Pacific's duty. Furthermore, we conclude that Union Pacific preserved error because it requested a substantially correct instruction. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals' judgment and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

Williams worked at a train derailment site for Union Pacific. A company Union Pacific hired to clean up derailments dragged a derailed train "hopper" car across railroad tracks. Williams and other Union Pacific employees stood somewhere between twenty and seventy feet away from the tracks. The train car was pulled over a signal mast. The resulting pressure caused a metal rain cap covering the signal mast to fly through the air and hit Williams in the back.

Williams filed a FELA suit against Union Pacific. FELA imposes liability on railroads for injuries to their employees "resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances ... or other equipment." 45 U.S.C. § 51.

During trial, several Union Pacific employees testified about the potential danger at the derailment site. For example, William Foehrs, a foreman at the site, testified that the derailment site was a dangerous place and that he had seen objects fly through the air at other derailment sites. Charles Butler, Union Pacific's track foreman, testified that dragging a train car onto a rail could cause a rain cap on a track signal mast to explode off the mast if it is pinned underneath the car. Dale Pecaut, Track Maintenance Director, conceded that an employee working around twenty feet away from a derailment site with his back turned to the track would be too close "when you're moving a car that has an object underneath it such as a signal mast." Pecaut also testified that he had seen cables break at derailment sites from the pressure of cars dragged over them and that snapped cables are dangerous. And Pecaut acknowledged that hazardous materials are not the only danger at a derailment site. Finally, Phillip Shafer, Track Maintenance Manager, testified that there is always potential hazard at a derailment site "regardless of how much job briefing or how much safety you talk."

In contrast, some Union Pacific employees also testified that a derailment site is not ordinarily dangerous under the conditions existing when Williams sustained his injuries. Kerry Trease, a Division Manager, testified that he never saw anything unsafe at the derailment site. Though Butler admitted a signal mast could fly off, as it did here, he also testified that no danger existed at the distance that Williams and the other employees stood from the derailed car. Butler testified that track employees had to move roughly 100 yards away from the tracks only when a hazardous-materials car was being re-railed. Patrick Davis and Ronnie Richardson, Union Pacific trackmen, similarly testified that Union Pacific had different safety rules for normal or "hopper" rail cars and hazardous materials cars. On the incident in occasion, both Davis and Richardson stated that the employees, including Williams, stood at the proper safety distance from where the hopper car was being re-railed. Additionally, though Pecaut testified that he had seen cables break at a derailment site, he had never seen objects fly through the air. He further testified that he had never seen an employee injured during a derailment cleanup. Richardson similarly testified that he had never seen an incident like the one that injured Williams.

Based on the testimony at trial, Union Pacific argued that whether Union Pacific knew or should have known that objects could fly through the air at the derailment site and result in injuries was disputed. Consequently, Union Pacific requested an instruction to require the jury to consider whether Union Pacific knew or should have known that the derailment site created a dangerous condition. The proposed instruction stated:

Before you may find a railroad liable for an injury of an employee resulting from a defective condition in equipment or his place of work, you must be satisfied that the railroad had either actual or constructive notice of the defective condition and that it had a reasonable opportunity to remove or repair the defect before the occurrence involved in this action.

The trial court refused Union Pacific's proposed instruction. Instead, the trial court submitted an instruction defining negligence based on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals' Pattern Jury Charge, which this Court approved in Mitchell v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R. Co., 786 S.W.2d 659, 662-63 (Tex.1990). The instruction states:

Negligence is the failure to use reasonable care. "Reasonable care" is that degree of care that a reasonably careful person would use under like circumstances, or in failing to do something that a reasonably careful person would do under like circumstances. Negligence may consist either in doing something that a reasonably careful person would not do under like circumstances, or not doing something that a reasonably careful person would do under like circumstances.

Thus, the charge did not instruct the jury to consider whether Union Pacific could foresee the dangerous condition for purposes of imposing a duty in this case.

The jury found Union Pacific liable and awarded Williams $454,000 in damages. The trial court rendered judgment on the verdict for Williams. Union Pacific appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in refusing to submit its proposed foreseeability instruction. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment. The court of appeals held that the trial court properly refused Union Pacific's proposed instruction, because it would have caused confusion, would not have assisted the jury, and did not accurately state the law. 85 S.W.3d at 807. The court of appeals also determined that Union Pacific's proposed instruction was inappropriate, because it resembled an instruction that this Court disapproved in Mitchell. 85 S.W.3d at 307.

We granted Union Pacific's petition for review to determine: (1) whether Union Pacific was entitled to a jury instruction on foreseeability as it relates to duty; and (2) if so, whether Union Pacific preserved its complaint that the trial court erred in refusing to submit Union Pacific's proposed instruction.

II. APPLICABLE LAW

A. FORESEEABILITY AS AN ELEMENT OF DUTY

Under FELA, railroads that engage in interstate commerce are liable in damages to their employees for injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of the railroad's employees or defects in its equipment. 45 U.S.C. § 51. To prevail on a FELA claim, a plaintiff must show that the defendant railroad did not use reasonable care under the circumstances. See Davis v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 541 F.2d 182, 185 (8th Cir. 1976).

A railroad is not an absolute insurer against the injuries its employees suffer. Wilkerson v. McCarthy, 336 U.S. 53, 61, 69 S.Ct. 413, 93 L.Ed. 497 (1949). The standard of care that a railroad must meet "must be commensurate to the dangers of the business." Wilkerson, 336 U.S. at 61, 69 S.Ct. 413 (quoting Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R. Co., 318 U.S. 54, 67, 63 S.Ct. 444, 87 L.Ed. 610 (1943)). Thus, an "essential ingredient" of the defendant's duty to use reasonable care is whether the railroad could have reasonably foreseen a harm. See Gallick v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co., 372 U.S. 108, 117-18, 83 S.Ct. 659, 9 L.Ed.2d 618 (1963); see also Uric v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 178, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed. 1282 (1949). The defendant's duty is "measured by what a reasonably prudent person would anticipate as resulting from a particular condition." Gallick, 372 U.S. at 118, 83 S.Ct. 659.

In other words, a FELA plaintiff must show that the railroad "with the exercise of due care, could have reasonably foreseen that a particular condition could cause injury." Armstrong v. Kansas City S. Ry. Co., 752 F.2d 1110, 1113 (5th. Cir. 1985) (quoting ...