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Missouri Pacific Railroad Company v. Roberson5/11/2000
reful." Testimony was also introduced that the supervisor of railroad's "Maintenance of Way" department, Lloyd Smith, made the comment during one of the safety meetings held for employees that large size ballast "had no business being in a yard like this because of all the foot traffic through the yard."
There was testimony from the railroad's expert regarding ballast conditions at the location where Mr. Roberson was injured. Mr. Satis Malhotra, a civil engineer, testified that the purpose of ballast is to give better distribution of load to the railroad tracks and for proper drainage. However, Mr. Roberson's trial counsel introduced into evidence a portion from a publication of the American Railway Engineering Association dealing with "Ballast Gradations," which read:
Rail yards and some industrial track gradations are generally graded from 1 inch to 3/8ths inch . . . to provide improved walkway and safety conditions along the track. The finer gradations for yard applications do not restrict track drainage as the construction practices for yard facilities provide quick runoff of ground water through the means of undertrack and yard drainage systems.
The FELA requires an employer to provide its employees with a reasonably safe place to work, and this includes a duty to maintain and inspect work areas. Grano v. Long Island R. Co., 818 F. Supp. 613, 618 (S.D.N.Y. 1993). This duty is an ongoing one and its scope has been described in the following manner: "An employer breaches its duty to provide a safe workplace when it knows or should know of a potential hazard in the workplace, yet fails to exercise reasonable care to inform and protect its employees." Gallose v. Long Island R.R., 878 F.2d 80, 84-85 (2d Cir. 1989) (citing DeChico v. Metro-North Commuter R.R., 758 F.2d 856, 862 (2d Cir. 1985). While there is a considerably more relaxed standard of proof for determining negligence in FELA cases, plaintiffs are still required to prove the traditional common law elements of negligence: duty, breach, foreseeability, and causation. Grano, 818 F. Supp. at 618. In the instant case, Mr. Roberson has shown that the railroad had actual knowledge of the unsafe conditions for carmen or anyone walking along the classification tracks where the large ballast was located. It was clearly foreseeable that employees required to inspect cars spotted on the classification tracks would injure themselves as they had to walk over the large ballast to conduct the inspections. The railroad's contention that large ballast was absolutely necessary in order for proper drainage of water to take place was sufficiently rebutted for the jury to have disregarded it as somehow making the railroad's acts or omissions regarding the large ballast reasonable.
Under the proper appellate standards of review as set out above for the denial of a JNOV as well as for FELA cases, we find much more than a scintilla of evidence to support the jury's finding that the railroad was negligent and that said negligence played a part in producing Mr. Roberson's left knee injury . As such, the trial court did not err in denying the railroad's motion for JNOV. Point of error two is overruled.
In considering the railroad's first issue, we note that in FELA cases, the burden of proving contributory negligence is on the railroad. Wilson v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 670 F.2d 780 (8th Cir. 1982). After examining the record evidence closely we find no evidence that raised the possibility that Mr. Roberson was somehow at fault in sustaining his knee injury. The testimony, as set out above from several sources, was that large ballast was unsafe to walk on because you could not tell just from looking at it whether or not i
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