Speed v. Long Island Railroad Company

Background

Thomas Speed brought a claim under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, a federal law governing railroad employers’ responsibility for work-related injuries. Speed worked for the Long Island Railroad Company as a car repairman and sometimes as a car inspector. On October 10, 2018, he was assigned to remove the walls of a bathroom on an LIRR M-3 train car. Neither Speed nor his assigned partner had performed that particular task on that train model.

Speed entered the bathroom alone while his partner remained outside to hand him tools. Speed raised the top of the toilet-box assembly and braced himself with his right hand while unscrewing the wall and box assembly. The lid swung down and crushed his hand. He suffered a tear in a joint, underwent surgery and extensive physical therapy, and could not work for nine months.

Speed alleged that LIRR failed to provide a safe workplace, safety rules, warnings, and necessary tools and equipment. He specifically asserted that no job briefing occurred before the work began. According to Speed, a briefing would have revealed his lack of experience with the M-3 bathroom and would have provided safe instructions or warned him not to brace his hand on the box while the lid was unsecured. LIRR maintained that a briefing had occurred and pointed to an incident report signed by Speed that marked “yes” for questions about whether a job briefing had occurred and whether the task had been discussed.

Summary-judgment standard

Summary judgment is appropriate only when there is no genuine dispute about a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. A material fact is one that could affect the result, and a genuine dispute exists when a reasonable jury could decide the fact for the nonmoving party. The court must view disputed facts and reasonable inferences in favor of the party opposing summary judgment.

The court explained that the Federal Employers’ Liability Act uses a more worker-friendly standard than ordinary negligence cases. Although the law does not impose strict liability, a plaintiff’s burden is relaxed, and a case generally should not be taken away from the jury unless there is no reasonable basis for finding for the plaintiff. To establish negligence under the statute, Speed needed evidence of a duty, a breach, foreseeability, and causation.

The disputed job briefing

The court found a genuine dispute over whether a job briefing occurred on the day of the accident. Speed testified that no briefing took place. LIRR relied primarily on the incident report, which Speed signed and which indicated that a briefing had occurred.

The court rejected LIRR’s argument that the report was conclusive “objective evidence.” Unlike a video recording that directly showed the disputed event, the report was prepared more than two weeks after the accident. The court also noted that the relevant answers appeared on the report’s last page and that the handwriting there looked different from Speed’s handwriting on earlier pages. What Speed understood when signing the report, and what the report showed, were matters for a jury and possible cross-examination, not grounds for summary judgment.

Negligence and notice

The court concluded that a reasonable jury could find a hazardous condition in LIRR’s alleged failure to hold a job briefing. Under the federal railroad-injury law, an employer may be negligent when it could reasonably foresee that a condition would increase the likelihood of injury and failed to take reasonable precautions. The court stated that job briefings are generally important safety procedures, even though no statute or regulation requiring a briefing applied to this particular case.

The court also found sufficient evidence of notice. At a minimum, LIRR had notice of its alleged failure to hold the briefing because that condition was one LIRR itself created. The court therefore concluded that a reasonable jury could find both a hazardous condition and notice.

Speed had also claimed that LIRR negligently failed to provide a latch securing the toilet-box lid in the raised position. Because Speed did not respond to LIRR’s arguments against that theory in his opposition to summary judgment, the court treated the latch-based claim as abandoned. The opinion did not grant the motion for summary judgment on that claim separately; it stated that Speed had abandoned it.

Causation

The court found a factual dispute concerning causation. The applicable standard required only evidence from which a jury could find that LIRR’s negligence played any part, even a very small part, in producing Speed’s injury. Speed testified that without a briefing he did not know how to perform the task safely and that a briefing would have given him instructions that could have prevented the injury. Given the relaxed causation standard, the court held that this evidence was enough to allow a reasonable jury to find that LIRR caused at least part of the injury.

Disposition

The court denied LIRR’s motion for summary judgment. The opinion therefore left the disputed job-briefing, negligence, notice, and causation issues for the jury, while treating Speed’s latch-based theory as abandoned.