O'donnell, Administratrix, v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway Co. (338 U.S. 384)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided December 12, 1949 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 338 U.S. 384 · 70 S. Ct. 200
- Decided
- December 12, 1949
- Term
- October Term 1949
- Vote
- 4–2
- Majority author
- Justice Jackson (R.H.)
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court. This action was brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U. S. C. §§ 51-60. The complaint mingled in a single count or cause of action charges of general negligence and a specific charge that defendant “carelessly and negligently” violated the Safety Appliance Act, 45 U. S. C. § 2, by operating a car not equipped with the prescribed coupler. The jury found against plaintiff and judgment for defendant was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. 171 F. 2d 973. This result must stand if the jury was properly instructed, as to which the Court of Appeals divided. O’Donnell, whose administratrix is petitioner here and was plaintiff below, met an unwitnessed death while working in defendant’s yards as a member of its switching crew. When last seen, he was going to adjust the couplers on certain cars which previously had failed to couple by impact. Shortly after his departure, as the result of the breaking of a coupler, two cars broke loose from a cut of cars that was being moved in a switching operation. Running free, they collided with other standing cars and drove them against those whose couplers decedent had said he was going to adjust. Some time later decedent’s mangled body was found lying across one rail of the track on which the cars he had intended to prepare for coupling had stood. That he had gone between…
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