Steve B. Glenn v. Union Pacific Railroad Company

[1] Mr. Glenn was injured while closing the "dump doors" of a rail car in a Union
Pacific Railroad Company coal train. He filed suit, claiming that his injury was the result
of the railroad's negligence. The district court granted summary judgment in Union
Pacific's favor, and Mr. Glenn appealed. We reverse the district court's decision.

ISSUE

[2] The single dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the district court erred in
granting Union Pacific's summary judgment motion.

FACTS

[3] Mr. Glenn was employed at the Black Butte coal mine in Sweetwater County. His
regular job was working with explosives, but on the night of June 30, 2000, he was asked
to work at the coal plant, where a Union Pacific coal train was waiting to be loaded. The
train consisted of 102 rail cars, of a type that unload through dump doors in the floors of
the cars. When the train arrived at Black Butte, the dump doors on approximately 40 of
the cars either were open, or were closed but not securely locked.1 It seems obvious that
coal cannot be loaded into a rail car with open doors. Less obviously, if coal is loaded
into a rail car with closed but unlocked doors, the doors might fall open immediately, or
later during travel, creating a risk of derailment. It is not uncommon for mine employees
to close and lock rail car doors before loading a coal train.2

[4] Mr. Glenn had never before closed rail car doors. A co-worker from Black Butte
showed him what to do. Using a pry bar, the two proceeded to close the open doors. To
lock the closed but unlocked doors, they first opened the doors, then swung them closed
again to engage the locking mechanism. Upon opening the closed but unlocked dump
doors, they discovered that some of the rail cars contained coking coal (coal processed
into small, hard, rounded pellets somewhat like charcoal briquettes) that was left over
from the train's previous cargo. According to Mr. Glenn, when they opened the unlocked
doors of one particular car, a substantial amount of coking coal spilled out and trapped
his right foot in place so that, as he fell backward, his right leg was broken.

[5] Mr. Glenn filed suit against Union Pacific, claiming that the railroad's negligence
caused his injury. Union Pacific moved for summary judgment and the district court
granted that motion. Mr. Glenn appeals the district court's decision.

DISCUSSION

Standard of Review

[6] The district court properly granted summary judgment if there is no genuine issue
as to any material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
W.R.C.P. 56(c). We employ a familiar standard when reviewing a district court's grant
of summary judgment:

The propriety of a summary judgment is evaluated
by employing the same standards and by
examining the same material as the district
court. We examine de novo the record, in the
light most favorable to the party opposing the
motion, affording to that party the benefit of all
favorable inferences that may be drawn from
the record. If upon review of the record, doubt
exists about the presence of issues of material
fact, that doubt must be resolved against the
party seeking summary judgment. We accord
no deference to the district court's decisions on
issues of law.

[Linton v. E.C. Cates Agency, Inc.], [2005 WY 63,] 7, 113
P.3d [26,] 28 [(Wyo. 2005)] (citations omitted). "Summary
judgment is not favored in a negligence action and is,
therefore, subject to more exacting scrutiny. We have,
however, affirmed summary judgment in negligence cases
where the record failed to establish the existence of a genuine
issue of material fact." Jones v. Schabron, 2005 WY 65, 9,
113 P.3d 34, 37 (Wyo. 2005) (citations omitted).
Jacobson v. Cobbs, 2007 WY 99, 7, 160 P.3d 654, 656-57 (Wyo. 2007).

[7] In Natrona County v. Blake, 2003 WY 170, 6, 81 P.3d 948, 951 (Wyo. 2003), we
listed the following elements of a negligence claim:

(1) The defendant owed the plaintiff a duty to conform to a
specified standard of care, (2) the defendant breached the
duty of care, (3) the defendant's breach of the duty of care
proximately caused injury to the plaintiff, and (4) the injury
sustained by the plaintiff is compensable by money damages.
Mr. Glenn correctly recited these elements in his district court pleadings, and our task
here is to determine whether the district court was correct in ruling that there were no
genuine issues of material fact with regard to these elements.

Duty Owed

[8] Wyoming law has long recognized that a railroad has a duty "to exercise ordinary
and reasonable care and prudence in the operation of its railway, and to take those usual,
ordinary, precautionary measures which a prudent, reasonable person would take."
Union Pacific Railway Co. v. Gilland, 4 Wyo. 395, 402, 34 P. 953, 955 (1893). When
this duty is violated and injury is caused, a railroad may be held liable. For example,
when the end door of a rail car fell and hurt an employee as he was unloading cargo, and
there was evidence that the fastening hooks had been worn and loose, we upheld the
jury's verdict that the railroad was negligent. Chicago & N.W. R.R. v. Ott, 33 Wyo. 200,
237 P. 238 (1925). In Chicago, B. & Q. R.R. v. Murray, 40 Wyo. 324, 338, 277 P. 703,
707 (1929), we explained that the railroad's duty "seems not unlike the duty of the owner
of premises to an invitee. The owner must use care to keep the premises reasonably safe
for the protection of the invitee."3

[9] Union Pacific acknowledges that it has a duty to perform a reasonable inspection
of its rail cars, and either remedy or warn its customers about dangerous conditions. This
is supported by numerous cases from other jurisdictions. See, e.g., Rouillier v. Illinois
Cent. Gulf R.R., 886 F.2d 105, 108 (5th Cir. 1989); Hedgcorth v. Missouri Pacific R.R.
Co., 592 S.W.2d 473, 475 (Mo. App. 1979); Stickle v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 122 Utah
477, 480, 251 P.2d 867, 868-69 (1952); and cases cited in 75 C.J.S. Railroads § 1193
(2002) and 99 A.L.R.2d 165, § 2. In this instance, the customer was Black Butte, and the
district court correctly noted that Black Butte, as Mr. Glenn's employer, had a duty to
provide a safe place to work. See, e.g., Mellor v. Ten Sleep Cattle Co., 550 P.2d 500, 503
(Wyo. 1976). However, the customer's duty to provide a reasonably safe workplace does
not supplant the railroad's duty to provide reasonably safe rail cars. As explained in
Chicago, R.I. & P.R. Co. v. Williams, 245 F.2d 397, 402 (8th Cir. 1957):

It is a carrier's duty to use ordinary care to deliver cars
reasonably safe for the use of shippers and their employees
while the cars [are] being loaded or unloaded. The
employer's duty to provide for the employee a safe place in
which to work may be added in the circumstances but does
not supplant the carrier's duty. The carrier cannot impose this
duty to furnish cars reasonably safe on the shipper, to its own
relief from liability for injuries to an employee of the shipper.
(Internal citation omitted.) Having reviewed the cases from Wyoming and other
jurisdictions, we conclude that Union Pacific owed Mr. Glenn a duty to provide rail cars
that were reasonably safe for their intended use.

Duty Breached

[10] Our review of the record reveals sufficient evidence to create a genuine dispute
about whether Union Pacific breached its duty to provide reasonably safe rail cars to the
Black Butte coal mine on the night Mr. Glenn was injured. There is evidence that at least
one rail car contained a substantial amount of coking coal left over from its previous
cargo. Mr. Glenn's deposition testimony indicates that this was a dangerous condition.
A co-worker who assisted in loading Mr. Glenn onto the ambulance testified that the
coking coal on the ground caused him concern about his footing and his own safety.
S.W.2d 78 (1941). Accordingly, while FELA cases do not apply directly, they still provide useful
guidance in negligence claims against the railroad.

[11] As expressed by Union Pacific, its duty was to inspect for dangerous conditions
and remedy or warn about them. The fact that 40 out of 102 rail cars in this train arrived
with their doors open or unlocked is evidence that no inspection had been performed.
One witness, an experienced railroad employee who had retired from Union Pacific,
agreed that if a train showed up at the mine with 40 cars with open doors, then somebody
along the way "hasn't done their job." Asked if he meant that somebody on the railroad
had not done his job, he answered, "that's certainly the way it looks if a train crew
brought it out with 40 cars open."

[12] Union Pacific could have remedied the potentially dangerous condition by
emptying the rail cars, or it could have warned Mr. Glenn that the rail cars might contain
a substantial amount of coking coal. There is no dispute that it did neither. The district
court noted, however, that this was not the first rail car Mr. Glenn had opened, and
coking coal had fallen from previous rail cars as well. On this basis, the district court
said that Mr. Glenn "had actual notice of the presence of coke in the cars." The district
court relied on Hedgcorth, 592 S.W.2d at 475, for the proposition that Union Pacific had
no duty to warn Mr. Glenn about a dangerous condition that was obvious, or of which he
was already aware.

[13] Hedgcorth is not consistent with Wyoming law. Under our obvious danger rule,
there is no duty to correct or warn about "an obvious and known danger resulting from
natural causes." O'Donnell v. City of Casper, 696 P.2d 1278, 1282 (Wyo. 1985). That
rule is limited to dangers resulting from natural causes such as ice, snow, or wind. Id. at
1283; Valance v. VI-Doug, Inc., 2002 WY 113, 10-12, 50 P.3d 697, 701-03 (Wyo.
2002). For non-natural conditions, even if the danger is "perfectly obvious to the
plaintiff," it is "the jury's function under the comparative negligence statute to compare
the plaintiff's negligence with that of the defendant." Stephenson v. Pacific Power &
Light Co., 779 P.2d 1169, 1180 (Wyo. 1989).

[14] Our review of the evidence suggests that the allegedly dangerous condition was
not so obvious. Mr. Glenn testified that, prior to the accident, only a couple of other rail
cars had to be opened and then closed. Coking coal had fallen from them, but in
Mr. Glenn's version of the event, substantially more spilled out of the rail car involved in
his injury. His co-worker, the only other witness to the event, agreed that more coking
coal spilled from this car than from the previous cars. Given this evidence, it is up to the
jury to decide if Mr. Glenn was negligent in failing to perceive an obvious danger, and to
compare his negligence, if any, to Union Pacific's negligence, if any.
Proximate Cause

[15] We have said that the "ultimate test of proximate cause is foreseeability of injury."
Turcq v. Shanahan, 950 P.2d 47, 51 (Wyo. 1997). We have also said that "[p]roximate
cause is usually a question of fact, reserved for the trier of fact's determination unless the
evidence is such that reasonable minds could not disagree." Duncan v. Town of Jackson,
903 P.2d 548, 553 (Wyo. 1995). Reasonable minds could determine that it was
foreseeable that a rail car containing a substantial amount of coking coal could cause
injury to someone like Mr. Glenn who opened the doors in order to lock them.

[16] Throughout this litigation, Mr. Glenn has emphasized Rule 1.35 of Union Pacific's
General Code of Operating Rules, which provides as follows:

Be sure dump doors on cars are closed after a load is dumped.
If car must be moved short distances with the dump doors
open, make sure the doors and chains will clear tracks and
crossings.

In considering this rule, the district court noted that Mr. Glenn's injury was not caused by
a rail car with open doors. Mr. Glenn could still have been injured even if the railroad
had closed all the rail car doors. Therefore, the district court reasoned, even if Union
Pacific did not comply with Rule 1.35, that was not a proximate cause of Mr. Glenn's
injury. Limited as it was to the issue of open doors, the district court's reasoning was
correct. However, the railroad's duty was not to provide rail cars with closed doors, but
to provide rail cars that were reasonably safe for their intended use. It is the alleged
breach of that duty that must be evaluated as the proximate cause of Mr. Glenn's injury.
Compensable Injury

[17] There appears to be no dispute that Mr. Glenn suffered an injury "compensable in
damages." That brings us to the final conclusion that sufficient evidence exists in the
record to create genuine issues of material fact with regard to each of the four elements of
Mr. Glenn's negligence claim against the railroad. The district court erred in granting
summary judgment in favor of Union Pacific.

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http://courts.state.wy.us/Opinions/2008WY16.pdf

[¶18] We reverse and remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion.

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