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Seeberger v. Burlington Northern Railroad Company9/2/1999
Oral Argument Date: 06/15/1999
EN BANC
We must decide in this case if an injured railroad worker has adduced sufficient evidence of his employer's negligence to take his case under 45 U.S.C. sec. 51, the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), to the jury. Under the very liberal test articulated in federal case law, which requires the worker provide only slight evidence his injuries were foreseeably the result of the railroad's breach of its duty to provide him a safe tool in his workplace, we hold the worker produced sufficient evidence to take his FELA case to a jury. Consequently, we reverse the trial court's summary Judgement in favor of the railroad.
ISSUE
Did a railroad worker produce sufficient evidence upon the railroad's motion for summary Judgement to create a fact question for a jury to decide as to whether the railroad breached its duty under FELA to provide him a safe workplace by giving him a tool it could reasonably have foreseen was unsafe for the task the worker performed?
FACTS
Raymond Seeberger, a "carman" for Burlington Northern Railroad Company (BN) at BN's Tacoma yard, had been employed in that capacity since 1956. Among other functions, a railroad carman inspects loads carried in freight cars. One day Seeberger was told to check on a grain car leaking grain onto the tracks. He went to investigate and found a car filled with grain leaking because a horizontal door in the bottom of the car was slightly ajar and needed to be closed more tightly.
To close the door, a carman had to turn a shaft that protruded from beneath the car. At the end of the shaft was a drumhead with elliptical sockets for insertion of a lever to aid in turning the shaft. Instead of a tool used specifically for the task of turning the drumhead, Seeberger used a wrecking bar, a long bar that is pointed on one end and flat on the other used for general work around a rail yard, to turn the drumhead. Seeberger inserted the pointed end of the wrecking bar into one of the holes in the drumhead and pushed down on it in an attempt to close the door.
The pointed end of the wrecking bar did not fit snugly into the hole because the hole was bigger than the point. Seeberger testified at his deposition: "I put the bar in the hole and I leaned on it to put the pressure on it and the bar slipped out of the hole and I fell against the side of the car." Clerk's Papers at 123. He fell to his knees and smashed his shoulder into the side of the freight car. He testified the bar slipped out because the hole was too big, the bar was too small, and the point did not fit in the hole.
Workers for grain companies have a specific tool that may be inserted snugly into the drumhead to turn the shaft. Other BN employees used this tool. Other BN employees also used a power tool to turn the shaft on grain cars, but the power tool was quite large and cumbersome.
The injury to Seeberger's shoulder eventually required surgery and "months and months and months" of physical therapy. Clerk's Papers at 129. Seeberger has residual stiffness in his shoulder and cannot bowl or throw a baseball more than 10 feet.
Seeberger sued BN in the Pierce County Superior Court under FELA, claiming BN had been negligent in failing to provide him with a proper tool. BN moved for summary Judgement, arguing Seeberger had used a wrecking bar safely for opening and closing freight car doors for 20 years in exactly the same way he used the bar on the day he was injured. Thus, BN contends, it could not have foreseen the harm Seeberger suffered and therefore was not negligent. Seeberger responded with evidence of the specific tool and
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