How a pending Georgia court decision could affect railroad liability (and carriers)
How the appellate court falls will determine how far a railroad's duty of care to its customers extends.
The Georgia Court of Appeals has been asked to decide how far a railroad’s duty extends when parking train cars for customers after a client’s employee was injured trying to move one. How the appellate court rules will determine how far a railroad’s duty of care to its customers extends.
The appeal was brought by CSX Transportation, represented by Daryl Clarida of Macon-based Hall Bloch Garland & Meyer at oral argument, after sawmill employee Theatris Oglesby, represented by Brent Savage Jr. of Savage, Turner, Pinckney, Savage & Sprouse, was injured when attempting to move what the plaintiff says was an improperly parked rail car CSX dropped off.
CSX took the case to the appellate court after the trial court declined to dismiss based on CSX’s argument that it only has a duty to make sure the rail cars aren’t defective and if there isn’t a prior agreement, it isn’t obligated to park cars in the exact spot the customer wants them. Therefore, it should not be liable for a customer’s injured employee.
Clarida contended that the rail car was not defective and had already been spotted (parked) and under the customer’s control by the time Oglesby tried to move it, and “there is no regulation, statute, common law, holding company rule or industry standard requiring that it be left in a particular position.”
Judge Christopher McFadden pushed back on this idea. “I believe there is a common-law duty to exercise care when you have created a situation where there is some danger to the plaintiff and the argument is that moving a rail car, particularly without the benefit of an engine is hazardous enough to activate the duty,” McFadden said. While exploring the question, he asked Clarida to point to specific spots in the case law and statute that supported his argument.
Clarida hearkened back to the appellate court’s opinion in Weeks v. Pollard, a case it decided in 1941, which he said held the railroad’s duty is limited to providing a car that is reasonably safe to move, reflecting the condition of the car, not where it’s located, “unless there’s an agreement between the customer and the railroad,” which there wasn’t in this scenario.
Savage, however, argued that the Weeks case is distinguishable from the dispute at hand because in Weeks the rail car was left somewhere it could be safely unloaded, which was not the case here.
Meanwhile, Judge Brian Rickman asked Savage what the foreseeable harm in this case was, what would he tell the jury?
Savage responded that there is an inherent danger in moving rail cars and that because the company relied on CSX for help moving the cars, CSX knew the customer company didn’t have the proper resources to move the rail car on its own.
Rickman wanted to know the limits of the defendant-appellant’s duty of care and what the railroad would have done to prevent liability. “What prevails between the customer’s wishes and what CSX would want?” Rickman asked.
Clarida responded, “The problem that you have in this case is that you cannot keep the car from being moved, it is outside of your control, and that car could be moved for numerous reasons.”
“If this was a situation where a customer was asking CSX to put it in a dangerous place. … Yes, CSX’s liability would be cut off, but that’s not the situation here,” Savage said. “CSX testified across the board they knew that these cars were supposed to go [in a specific spot] and they were trained to put them [there]. … I also think there’s a separate duty based on the procedure that CSX had to spot these cars. … [There’s] a factual indication that [the car was never spotted] properly to begin with.”
“Basically, your whole theory of the case is with the engineer, who should have properly placed the car, just cut corners and didn’t do a good job, necessitating your client’s employer to move the car as best they could with inadequate equipment and that’s inherently dangerous?” McFadden asked.
“Yes sir, exactly,” Savage replied.
The case is CSX Transportation v. Oglesby, No. A24A0027, in the Georgia Court of Appeals.
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