CSX Transp., Inc. v. McBride (10-235)

argument 10-235

CSX Transp., Inc. v. McBride

Supreme Court of the United States 58 min 5 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 4 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the Supreme Court’s position on the proximate‑cause requirement in FELA cases?

John G. Roberts 0:01

We'll hear argument next this morning in case ten two thirty five, CSX transportation versus McBride.

0:07

Mr.

John G. Roberts 0:07

Rothfeld.

Unknown 0:09

Thank you, Mr Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. In this case, we find ourselves in the happy situation of having to try to convince the Court that its prior decisions were correct. just five years after the enactment of Phila. The court declared that it was obvious that the statute contained a proximate cause requirement. The court went on to repeat that conclusion. over and over again in almost two dozen decisions over the next forty years. Our submission this morning is that the Court, when it made these statements, got it right. Uh how how did it happen that in F E L A we have proximate cause light uh It's just a different approximate cause than we see in in other torts cases. How how how did that come about?

Unknown 0:50

Well, uh we we our submission is that that is not correct, that that is not what the provides for at all. And in the Court's initial decisions, the ones that I referred to, it it stated very clearly that the ordinary proximate cause rule applies. This the approximate cause test that the Court stated in cases like Brady was the traditional proximate cause standard. Can you read the cases as indicating that more deference is given to juries in F E L A cases than in other cases? Well that that's is a is a separate question from the one we have here. I mean we were talking here about the the nature of the the elements of the cause of action that have to be demonstrated by by the plaintiff. And so there there the question of how much of that evidence there has to be to get to the jury is a separate question.

Unknown 1:33

That's not presented here. I'm our our submission I mean since as since you posed the question, is that there is no different standard. Fila was not intended to depart from the ordinary common law procedural approaches in that respect either. But on on the question that is presented in the juries usually fine against railroads anyway, right? I I I wouldn't want to commit myself to answering that question affirmatively, Your Honor. I I mean the the the the court has said that that FILA was enacted to address particular problems It is also said that there is a relaxed standard of causation. Justice Kennedy is referring to said proximate cause light. But we have said in more than one case that there is A relaxed standard of causation in F E L A cases.

Unknown 2:24

Was that wrong? I I think th there are two ways to respond to that, uh, Justice Ginsburg. The first is that up until the Rogers decision, which which is one of the ones which has created I think some confusion in this area The Court was quite clear and unambiguous that proximate cause in Phila applied in the ordinary sense. As I say, in cases like the Brady case, the court stated what proximate cause means. It stated in in entirely traditional terms that that the plaintiff had to demonstrate that the injury followed in a natural, probable, foreseeable way from the wrongful conduct. And so that that was the standard. The Rogers case, which was the source of some of the confusion in this area, in our view, as as we think Justice Souter correctly demonstrated in his opinion in Sorrell, and as we

Unknown 3:10

Rogers, we think, did not address causation at all. The Rogers case uh was a a situation in which there were a multiplicity of causes and the question was what what should should the rule be when And there are a number of of entities that contribute to the accident. It had nothing to do with remoteness or directness of the cause, what we usually think about when we talk about approximate cause. Uh in in the years since Rogers was decided, when the court got out of the business of deciding feel of cases on the facts, it has not had occasion in on in any case to address It specifically uh what approximate cause meant in the field of context. Where where did this language that does appear in our in our cases about the relaxed standard where

Unknown 3:56

Where does that come from? Fa that that comes from we we submit from a sort of a loose description of what was going on in the Rogers case, which involved a multiplicity of causes rather than directness and remoteness of causes.