Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. v. De Atley

Background

On January 22, 1911, a brakeman employed by a railroad was injured while trying to board his moving west-bound freight train near Maysville, Kentucky. He had gone forward to a signal tower to learn the location of a passenger train and then stepped down to the platform and attempted to get aboard as his train passed. The train’s tender cut off his arm. He had worked about six weeks and frequently left and reboarded trains under orders. He sued under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act in state court and won a jury verdict; the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed.

Reasoning

The core question was whether the brakeman had voluntarily accepted the risk of injury when he tried to board the train. The Court explained that while the statute makes the carrier liable for employee injuries caused by negligence, an employee is still considered to assume ordinary workplace risks. But an employee does not assume extraordinary dangers caused by carrier negligence unless those dangers were so obvious that an ordinarily careful person would have seen and appreciated them. Because the jury found the engineer knew the brakeman would try to board and the train ran about twelve miles per hour, the Court held it could not declare as a matter of law that the risk was obvious; that factual question belongs to the jury.

Real world impact

The Supreme Court reversed and sent the case back for further proceedings, meaning jurors must decide whether the danger was obvious and therefore assumed. State trial courts must give proper local-form instructions on assumption of risk when a jury question exists. The ruling does not finally decide all liability issues but requires continued factfinding consistent with this opinion.