Wilson v. Union Pacific R. Co., 93-1386

• Decision Date: 25 May 1995
• Docket Number: No. 93-1386,93-1386
• Citation: 56 F.3d 1226
• Parties: Steven L. WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 1226

56 F.3d 1226

Steven L. WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 93-1386.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

May 25, 1995.

Norman R. Mueller, Haddon, Morgan & Foreman, Denver, CO (Rachel A. Bellis, Haddon, Morgan & Foreman, Denver, CO and James L. Cox, Jr., Morrissard, Rossi, Cox, Kiker & Inderwish, Aurora, CO, with him on the briefs), for plaintiff-appellee.

Mark C. Hansen (David B. Ellis, with him on the briefs) Gorsuch Kirgis, Denver, CO, for defendant-appellant.

Before HENRY and LOGAN, Circuit Judges, and REED, ^* District Judge.

HENRY, Circuit Judge.

Union Pacific Railroad Company appeals from a judgment holding it liable under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. Secs. 51-60, and awarding damages to plaintiff-appellee Steven L. Wilson. We affirm, but remand for a recalculation of the postjudgment interest on the award.

I. BACKGROUND

On the night of February 2, 1990, Steven L. Wilson was working as a brakeman on an eastbound Union Pacific train passing through Kimball, Nebraska, when the crew noticed sparks emanating from one of the cars. The conductor stopped the train, and Mr. Wilson and the conductor went to diagnose the problem. After inspecting more than seventy cars, they determined that the brakes had locked on a car approximately twenty cars behind the engine. Mr. Wilson disabled the brakes so that the train could continue.

As Mr. Wilson and the conductor prepared to return from this task, they were notified that another train was coming up behind them and would be passing them on the south side of their train. The two men accordingly moved to the other side of the train and began their walk back to the head of the train. Mr. Wilson used his lantern to illuminate his path in the dark and continued to inspect the other cars as he walked. Proceeding eastward, Mr. Wilson encountered a county road that lay perpendicular to the track. As he crossed the road, he stepped into a deep rut and injured his ankle.

From the initial injury, Mr. Wilson developed reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), a chronic pain condition. He underwent a lengthy course of medical treatment, but was never released by his physician to return to work as a brakeman. Evidence at trial indicated that Union Pacific planned to interview him for a light duty position as a security guard, but Mr. Wilson was jailed on a drug possession complaint and thus failed to appear for the interview. He later pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance and was terminated by Union Pacific. At the time this litigation commenced, Mr. Wilson was in the process of appealing the termination to a grievance board.

Mr. Wilson brought an action against Union Pacific under FELA and the Safety Appliance Act (SAA), 45 U.S.C. Secs. 1-21. ¹ In the first phase of a bifurcated trial, the jury found that Union Pacific had violated the SAA and that the violation was the cause of Wilson's injuries. In the second phase, the jury found damages in the amount of $500,000.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Causation

We turn first to Union Pacific's contention that the causal nexus between the SAA violation and Wilson's injury is insufficient to support a finding of liability under FELA. Union Pacific argues that its motion for summary judgment on the SAA claim was erroneously denied. In the alternative, Union Pacific contends that the district court erred by refusing to instruct the jury that the causal link between the defective brake and Mr. Wilson's injury was broken once the plaintiff reached a "place of safety."

1. Summary Judgment

As to the motion for summary judgment, Mr. Wilson incorrectly contends that Union Pacific lost the chance to appeal this issue when it failed to move for a judgment as a matter of law under Fed.R.Civ.P. 50 at the close of trial. Not every denial of a motion for summary judgment requires a subsequent Rule 50 motion in order to be appealable. A critical distinction exists between "summary judgment motions raising the sufficiency of the evidence to create a fact question for the jury and those raising a question of law that the court must decide." Ruyle v. Continental Oil Co., 44 F.3d 837, 842 (10th Cir.1994). Where a motion for summary judgment based on an issue of law is denied, appellate review of the motion is proper even if the case proceeds to trial and the moving party fails to make a subsequent Rule 50 motion. Id.

Union Pacific's motion for summary judgment was neither phrased as, nor understood by the court to be, a challenge to the sufficiency of the plaintiff's evidence. Instead, the motion was one that raised a question of law for the court. The railroad contended that under the appropriate FELA causation standard the SAA violation could not, as a matter of law, have been the cause of any injury once the plaintiff left the site of the violation. Determining the validity of such an argument is manifestly a question of law that the court must decide. See W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts Sec. 45 (5th ed. 1984) (analyzing the functions of court and jury in determining causation). Thus, under Ruyle, no Rule 50 motion was required to preserve the motion. We therefore turn to the substance of Union Pacific's appeal.

A district court's denial of a motion for summary judgment is reviewed de novo. Monarch Cement Co. v. Lone Star Indus., Inc., 982 F.2d 1448, 1451 (10th Cir.1992); Metro Oil Co. v. Sun Refining & Mktg. Co., 936 F.2d 501, 503 (10th Cir.1991). The denial is reversible where there is no genuine dispute over a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Monarch Cement, 982 F.2d at 1451. Here the record reveals no dispute over the material facts relevant to the SAA violation and the circumstances of Mr. Wilson's injury. However, we conclude that Union Pacific was not entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

The SAA is designed to reduce railroad accidents by requiring the installation and maintenance of safety devices. Although the SAA does not in itself create a cause of action for violations, an SAA violation constitutes per se negligence for purposes of employer liability under FELA. Thus, an employee injured by an SAA violation has a cause of action untrammeled by common law restrictions on tort liability such as contributory negligence and assumption of the risk. Crane v. Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Ry., 395 U.S. 164, 166, 89 S.Ct. 1706, 1708, 23 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969).

The SAA-FELA plaintiff "is not required to prove common-law proximate causation but only that his injury resulted 'in whole or in part' from the railroad's violation of the Act." Id. (quoting 45 U.S.C. Sec. 51); see also Rogers v. Missouri Pac. R.R., 352 U.S. 500, 508, 77 S.Ct. 443, 449, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957) (FELA's causation requirement is satisfied if the employer's action played "any part, however small" in injuring the employee).

A relaxed causation requirement is not the same as no requirement at all; it is not enough that there be an SAA violation "in the air" when a plaintiff is injured. Thus, where there are no disputed material facts, and it can be said as a matter of law that the alleged SAA violation played absolutely no part in the plaintiff's injury, summary judgment for the defendant remains proper in a FELA case. This is not such a case. It is undisputed that Mr. Wilson was injured while returning from attending to an SAA violation. But for the violation, Mr. Wilson would not have been forced to walk on the dark, rutted road where the injury occurred.

Union Pacific argued strenuously at trial that this "but for" relationship did not suffice to establish legal causation because the violation was too remote from the injury. We disagree. This court has previously held that an employee who is injured while on the way to repair an SAA violation may recover under FELA. Metcalfe v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry., 491 F.2d 892, 898 (10th Cir.1974). Even under a proximate cause analysis, it is entirely foreseeable that an employee charged with repairing an SAA violation must not only go to but also return from the repair site. In this case, where there is no suggestion that Mr. Wilson had returned from the repair site or had begun duties unrelated to the SAA violation, we find no error in the district court's denial of Union Pacific's motion for summary judgment.

2. The "Place of Safety" Instruction

We turn next to Union Pacific's proffered "place of safety" instruction. We review for abuse of discretion the district court's refusal to submit this instruction to the jury. Hinds v. General Motors Corp., 988 F.2d 1039, 1046 (10th Cir.1993). We find none.

Union Pacific proposed this instruction on the basis of the court's reasoning in Wright v. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pac. Ry., 107 Ohio App. 310, 152 N.E.2d 421 (1958), cert. denied, 359 U.S. 979, 79 S.Ct. 897, 3 L.Ed.2d 928 (1959). In that case the plaintiff, a railroad brakeman, was injured while in the process of attending to an SAA violation on his train. He returned from the site of the violation to the locomotive, stayed there for several minutes, then proceeded to another car in order to retrieve a part to complete the repair. While there, the plaintiff slipped and fell. The court denied recovery because the plaintiff had reached a "place of safety," namely the locomotive, before the injury occurred. Id. 152 N.E.2d at 424.

The trial court in the present case did not abuse its discretion in refusing an instruction based on Wright. Mr. Wilson, unlike the plaintiff in Wright, was still on his way from the violation to the locomotive when the injury occurred. In the context of the facts in this case, the "place of safety" theory urged by Union Pacific merely repeats Union Pacific's contention that no causal link exists between the SAA violation and the injury. No site where a plaintiff sustains an injury can be called "s...