Yawn v. Southern Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 16 March 1979
• Docket Number: Nos. 77-1036,s. 77-1036
• Citation: 591 F.2d 312
• Parties: 100 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3025, 86 Lab.Cas. P 11,281 Morgan YAWN, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees. thru 77-1042.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 312

591 F.2d 312

100 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3025, 86 Lab.Cas. P 11,281

Morgan YAWN, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 77-1036 thru 77-1042.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

March 16, 1979.

Frank O. Burge, Jr., Michael A. Florie, Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiffs-appellants in all cases.

Charles E. Sharp, Birmingham, Ala., for Central of Georgia Railroad Co. and defendants-appellees in all cases.

William F. Gardner, Birmingham, Ala., for Southern Railway Co. and defendants-appellees in all cases.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before MORGAN, RONEY and VANCE, Circuit Judges.

LEWIS R. MORGAN, Circuit Judge:

Appellants, seven clerical employees of the appellee railroad companies, filed companion lawsuits under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq., in an Alabama state court seeking to recover damages for personal injuries allegedly resulting from the railroads' negligence. In identical complaints, the employees claimed that the railroads negligently failed to provide them with adequate help and adequate time with which to do their jobs thereby causing them to suffer physical pain, mental anguish, and gastrointestinal disturbances. The railroads moved to federal court on the ground that the employees' claims were in reality "minor" disputes arising under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq., and therefore subject to that Act's grievance and arbitration procedures. The parties' positions were extensively briefed and orally argued before the district court on October 21, 1976. Reasoning that the employees had cast what were clearly grievance claims in the form of FELA cases in order to avoid the grievance procedure and the National Railroad Adjustment Board, the district court denied the employees' motions to remand to state court and granted the railroads' motions to dismiss the suits without prejudice to the employees' rights to pursue their remedies under the procedures established by the Railway Labor Act. The issue on this appeal is whether the district court erred in failing to grant the employees' motions to remand to state court. Because FELA suits filed in state courts are nonremovable under 28 U.S.C. § 1445(a), we conclude that the case must be remanded.

The primary purpose of the Railway Labor Act is "to avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier engaged therein" by promoting industrial peace and eliminating, as far as possible, the danger of strikes on railroads. 45 U.S.C. § 151a; Virginian Ry. v. System Federation No. 40, 300 U.S. 515, 547, 57 S.Ct. 592, 81 L.Ed. 789 (1937); International Ass'n. of Machinists v. Central Airlines, Inc., 295 F.2d 209 (5th Cir. 1961). Toward this end, the Act establishes a grievance and arbitration procedure providing for "the prompt and orderly settlement of all disputes growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements covering rates of pay, rules, or Working conditions." 45 U.S.C. § 151a (emphasis added). The Supreme Court has stated that "this statutory grievance procedure is a mandatory, exclusive, and comprehensive system for resolving grievance disputes." Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Louisville & N. R.R., 373 U.S. 33, 38, 83 S.Ct. 1059, 1062, 10 L.Ed.2d 172 (1963). See Andrews v. Louisville & N. R.R., 406 U.S. 320, 92 S.Ct. 1562, 32 L.Ed.2d 95 (1972).

The railroads contend that the employees attempted to circumvent this mandatory procedure by the artful pleading of a FELA action. They urge that the district court was not required to accept the employees' characterization of their claims but was entitled to examine the facts of the case in making its assessment as to the "real nature" of the claims. Villarreal v. Brown Express, 529 F.2d 1219 (5th Cir. 1976); Universal Communications Corp. v. Burns, 449 F.2d 691 (5th Cir. 1971). In support of its position that these FELA claims were a mere ruse designed to avoid the grievance procedures and the National Railroad Adjustment Board, the railroads point out that these claims arose out of the elimination of certain jobs and are nothing more than an assertion by the employees that they are being required to work too hard. Such claims, they argue, are classic "minor" disputes over working conditions which must be submitted to the Act's mandatory grievance and arbitration procedures.

The employees deny that they artfully pleaded a nonremovable cause of action in order to avoid the grievance and arbitration procedures of the Railway Labor Act. On the contrary, they assert that their allegations of negligence and personal injury state substantial causes of action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act and, for that reason, cannot be removed to federal court. See 28 U.S.C. § 1445(a).

Section 1 of the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. § 51, establishes a railroad's liability for negligent injury to its employee:

Every common carrier by railroad while engaging in commerce between any of the several States or Territories . . . shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce . . . for such injury or death 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, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment.

The Act does not propose to define negligence, but rather leaves that task to the common law as announced by the federal courts. Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed. 1282 (1949); Escandon v. Pan American Foreign Corp., 88 F.2d 276, 277 (5th Cir. 1937). In deciding questions of negligence, the courts have uniformly recognized that a railroad is under a nondelegable duty to provide its employees with a reasonably safe place to work. Nivens v. St. Louis S.W. Ry., 425 F.2d 114 (5th Cir. 1970); Fort Worth & D. Ry. v. Smith, 206 F.2d 667 (5th Cir. 1953). As a corollary to this duty to maintain safe working conditions, the carrier is required to provide its employee with sufficient help in the performance of the work assigned to him. Blair v. Baltimore & O. R.R., 323 U.S. 600, 65 S.Ct. 545, 89 L.Ed. 557 (1945). Where the failure to provide sufficient help proximately causes injury to the employee, the carrier is liable for negligence under the provisions of the FELA. Deere v. Southern Pac. Co., 123 F.2d 438 (9th Cir. 1941), Cert. denied, 315 U.S. 819, 62 S.Ct. 916, 86 L.Ed. 1217 (1942); Reynolds v. Atlantic Coast Line R., 251 Ala. 27, 36 So.2d 102 (1948); Louisville & N. R.R. v. Crim, 273 Ala. 114, 136 So.2d 190 (1961).

The employees rely on the above principles as providing a basis for carrier liability in this case should they prove their allegations of negligence and injury. The overwhelming majority of the "insufficient help" cases, however, concern employees who suffered some demonstrable physical injury, usually a back injury sustained while attempting to lift too heavy an object. Southern Ry. v. Welch, 247 F.2d 340 (6th Cir. 1957) (ruptured disc sustained when moving rails); Masiglowa v. New York, C. & St. L. R.R., 135 F.Supp. 816 (N.D.Ohio 1955) (back injury sustained while lifting planks); Missouri Pac. R.R. v. Sparks, 424 S.W.2d 12 (Tex.Civ.App.1967) (hernia sustained while moving mail bag). The employees cite only one FELA case in which the plaintiff's injury was the type of borderline mental-physical injury alleged in this case. McMillan v. Western Pacific R.R., 54 Cal.2d 841, 9 Cal.Rptr. 361, 357 P.2d 449 (1960). There the employee, a train dispatcher, alleged that his employer's negligence in subjecting him to working conditions involving clerical functions of unusual responsibility imposed such stress on his physical and nervous systems that he suffered a severe nervous collapse. The only question before the court was whether the complaint stated a cause of action under the FELA. The court held that these allegations were "clearly sufficient" to state a cause of action for injuries resulting from the railroad's negligence.

In Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed. 1282 (1949), the Supreme Court held that the FELA should be liberally construed as covering "any injury" caused by the carrier's negligence, including injuries attributable to the employees' working conditions:

We recognize, of course that, when the statute was enacted, Congress' attention was focused primarily upon injuries and death resulting from accidents on interstate railroads. Obviously these were the major causes of injury and death resulting from railroad operations. But accidental injuries were not the only ones likely to occur. And Nothing in either the language or the legislative history discloses expressly any intent to exclude from the Act's coverage any injury resulting "in whole or in part from the negligence" of the carrier. If such an intent can be found, it must be read into the Act by sheer inference.

The language is as broad as could be framed: "any person suffering injury while he is employed"; "such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers agents, or employees of such carrier"; "by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances," etc. On its face, Every injury suffered by any employee while employed by reason of the carrier's negligence Was made compensable. The wording was not restrictive as to the employees covered; The cause of injury, except that it must constitute negligence attributable to the carrier; Or the particular kind of injury resulting.

To read into this all-inclusive wording a restriction as to the kinds of employees covered, the degree of negligence required, or The particular...