CSX Transportation, Inc. v. Hensley
The Supreme Court summarily reversed a Tennessee appeals court, ruling that a trial judge must tell the jury that a railroad worker's fear of getting cancer has to be genuine and serious before the jury can award him money for it, once the railroad asks for that instruction.
The decision reinforces limits the Court had set in an earlier case on damages for fear of future illness in railroad-injury lawsuits, and it sends the worker's $5 million verdict back for the Tennessee courts to reconsider in light of the missing instruction.
“This is a serious misunderstanding of the nature and function of the jury.”
Rejecting the Tennessee court's view that a jury instruction would be futile because cancer evokes strong emotions.
How it got here: A Tennessee jury awarded Hensley $5 million; the Tennessee Court of Appeals affirmed; CSX asked the Supreme Court to review and summarily reverse.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Thurston Hensley worked as an electrician for CSX Transportation for over 30 years and developed asbestosis, a lung-scarring condition, after long-term exposure to asbestos on the job. He sued CSX under a federal law covering railroad workers' injuries, seeking damages that included compensation for his fear of someday developing cancer. A Tennessee jury awarded him $5 million after CSX's requested jury instructions on that fear-of-cancer claim were refused.
The question before the Court
When a railroad worker sues for fear-of-cancer damages, must the trial judge instruct the jury that the fear must be "genuine and serious" if the railroad asks for that instruction?
Why it matters
Railroads defending asbestos and toxic-exposure lawsuits gain a clearer right to a specific jury instruction that limits emotional-distress awards to cases with real, serious fear of cancer. Trial courts nationwide handling fear-of-cancer claims under this federal railroad-injury law must now give the instruction when a defendant asks for it, changing how future jury trials on these claims are conducted.
What changes now
The case goes back to the Tennessee courts for further proceedings, since the trial court must have properly instructed the jury on the genuine-and-serious standard for fear-of-cancer damages. As Justice Stevens noted in dissent, whether the instructional error was actually harmless — meaning it might not have changed the outcome — remains open for the Tennessee Court of Appeals to decide on remand. This is a final ruling on the legal question, not a temporary order.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the jury instruction error actually changed the outcome of Hensley's case (harmless-error review), leaving that question open for the Tennessee courts on remand. It also did not disturb the jury's separate findings that CSX was liable for Hensley's brain damage and asbestosis.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Stevens
“This is an unwise summary disposition.”Stevens criticizing the Court's decision to summarily reverse without full briefing and argument.
Justice Stevens argued the majority misread a footnote in Ayers, contending it merely noted that defendants may request a genuine-and-serious instruction, not that courts must always grant it or that refusal is automatically reversible error. He would have deferred to the Tennessee and Missouri courts' interpretation that trial judges act as gatekeepers through sufficiency review rather than mandatory instructions, and criticized the Court for deciding the case summarily without full briefing.
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
Justice Ginsburg agreed that Ayers supports only a simple instruction stating the fear must be genuine and serious, but concluded CSX's proposed instructions were far more elaborate than that simple standard, so the trial court properly refused them. She would have denied certiorari and dissented from the summary reversal.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied its earlier ruling in Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Ayers, which allows railroad workers with asbestosis to seek damages for fear of future cancer, but only if they prove that fear is 'genuine and serious.'
- The Court read a footnote in Ayers as identifying specific tools, called 'verdict control devices,' that trial courts must use when a defendant asks for them, including a jury instruction on the genuine-and-serious standard.
- Because CSX specifically requested that instruction and the trial court refused to give any instruction stating the legal standard, the Court held the refusal was clear error under Ayers.
- The Court rejected the Tennessee appeals court's reasoning that such an instruction would be pointless because cancer fears provoke strong emotions, explaining that juries are presumed to follow instructions rather than act on raw emotion.
- The Court also rejected the idea that judges could adequately protect defendants by reviewing whether there was enough evidence to send the fear-of-cancer claim to the jury in the first place, since that sufficiency check does not substitute for a jury properly told what standard to apply.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Ayers (538 U. S. 135)
The Court relies on and clarifies Ayers, holding it requires a genuine-and-serious jury instruction when requested.