In Norfolk Southern Railway Company v Sorrell the Supreme Court was presented with the issue of whether the lower Courts in Missouri erred in determining that the causation standard for railroad employee contributory negligence under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) differs from the causation standard for railroad employers’ negligence. Since the Jones Act expressly incorporates by reference FELA’s liability standard, this case has a direct impact on US maritime personal injury claims.
Sorrell, was injured while working for Norfolk Southern Railway (Norfolk). He sought damages for neck and back injuries under FELA. Both Sorrell and the railroad had been negligent in the incident and Norfolk argued that under FELA, the “causation standard” - the standard for attributing fault for an incident - was the same for both the employee and the railroad. According to Norfolk, any damages awarded to Sorrell for the railroad’s negligence had to be reduced by the amount of damages that was attributable to Sorrell’s own negligence.
At first instance the Court ruled that the causation standards were different. It held that Norfolk was responsible for any negligence that contributed to the accident, but that Sorrell was only responsible for negligence that directly caused damage. Under this more lenient standard for employee negligence, the trial court awarded Sorrell US$1.5 million.
The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the Court of first instance. The matter was referred to the United States Supreme Court via the Missouri Supreme Court on the question whether the causation standard for employee negligence under FELA (and thus the Jones Act) was different from the causation standard for railroad (employer) negligence.
The Supreme Court decided that under FELA, the standard of causation for the defendant’s negligence must be the same as the standard for a plaintiff’s contributory negligence. Unfortunately, the Court did not go so far as to decide what constitutes the causation standard.
Maritime defence practitioners in the US are of the view that the decision in Sorrell will provide a platform to attempt to attack the current “feather-weight” causation standard that is applied in cases. The ultimate aim is for the railroad and maritime industries to be on a level playing field in which personal injury claims are decided based on common law principles of proximate causation rather than the relaxed causation standard which is currently applied. This judgement is a step in the right direction for US shipowners that are regularly involved in US employee personal injury litigation.
