OCTOBER TERM, 1995
Syllabus
NORFOLK & WESTERN RAILWAY CO.
v. HILES
CERTIORARI TO THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS, 5TH JUDICIAL
DISTRICT
No. 95-6. Argued January 8, 1996-Decided February 27,1996
Railroad cars are connected by couplers consisting of
knuckles-clamps that lock with their mates-joined to the ends of
drawbars, which are fastened to housing mechanisms on the cars.
Cars automatically couple when they come together and one car's
open knuckle engages the other car's closed knuckle. The drawbar
pivots in its housing, allowing the knuckled end some lateral play
to prevent moving cars from derailing on a curved track. As a
consequence of this lateral movement, drawbars may remain off
center when cars are uncoupled and must be realigned manually to
ensure proper coupling. Respondent Hiles injured his back while
attempting to realign an off-center drawbar on a car at one of
petitioner Norfolk & Western Railway Company's yards. He sued
in Illinois state court, alleging that Norfolk & Western had
violated § 2 of the Safety Appliance Act (SAA or Act), which
requires that cars be equipped with "couplers coupling
automatically by impact, and capable of being uncoupled, without
the necessity of individuals going between the ends of the
vehicles." The trial court granted Hiles a directed verdict on
liability, and the State Appellate Court affirmed.
Held: Section 2 does not make a railroad liable as a
matter of law for injuries incurred by a railroad employee while
trying to straighten a misaligned drawbar. Pp.403-414.
(a) Congress passed the SAA in 1893 to promote switchyard safety
by requiring the use of standardized automatic couplers. SAA
liability may be predicated on the failure of coupling equipment to
perform as required by the Act, and the SAA creates an absolute
duty requiring not only that automatic couplers be present, but
also that they actually perform. See,
e. g., Affolder v.
New York, C. &
St. L. R. Co., 339 U. S. 96, 98. Pp.
403-409.
(b) However, failure to couple will not cause a violation if the
railroad can show that a coupler has not been properly set to
couple on impact.
Affolder, supra, at 99.
Affolder's
restriction on failure-to-perform liability logically extends to
every step necessary to prepare a nondefective coupler for
coupling, including ensuring a drawbar's proper alignment. Thus,
the absolute duty is not breached as a matter of law when a drawbar
becomes misaligned during the ordinary course of railroad
operations. Hiles' interpretation would require a finding that, as
a mat-
401
ter of law, a misaligned drawbar is a malfunctioning drawbar,
when, in fact, misalignment occurs as a part of the normal course
of railroad car operations. His reading of § 2 would mean that
every railroad car for nearly a century has been in violation of
the SAA. Also contrary to Hiles' argument, § 2 does not command
railroads to develop a mechanism for automatic drawbar realignment.
Congress legislated working automatic couplers for employee safety,
not employee safety by whatever means a court might deem
appropriate. Pp. 409-414.
268 Ill. App. 3d 561, 644 N. E. 2d 508, reversed.
THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Carter G. Phillips argued the cause for petitioner. With him on
the briefs were Thomas W Alvey, Jr., Kurt E. Reitz, and Mary Sue
Juen.
Lawrence M. Mann argued the cause for respondent.
With him on the brief was
Jeanne Sathre. *
JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. Before us in
this case is the question whether § 2 of the Safety Appliance Act
(SAA), 49 U. S. C. § 20302(a)(1)(A), makes a railroad liable as a
matter of law for injuries incurred by a railroad employee while
trying to straighten a misaligned drawbar. We hold that it does not
and, accordingly, reverse the judgment of the Illinois Appellate
Court.
I
Railroad cars in a train are connected by couplers located at
both ends of each car. A coupler consists of a knuckle joined to
the end of a drawbar, which itself is fastened to a housing
mechanism on the car. A knuckle is a clamp that interlocks with its
mate, just as two cupped hands-placed palms together with the
fingertips pointing in opposite direc-
* Robert W Blanchette filed a brief for the
Association of American Railroads as
amicus curiae urging
reversal.
Robert B. Thompson, Patrick J. Harrington,
and
Clinton J. Miller III filed a brief for
the United Transportation Union as
amicus curiae urging
affirmance.
402
tions-interlock when the fingers are curled.1 When cars come
together, the open knuckle on one car engages a closed knuckle on
the other car, automatically coupling the cars. The drawbar extends
the knuckle out from the end of the car and is designed to pivot in
its housing, allowing the knuckled end some lateral play to prevent
moving cars from derailing on a curved track. As a consequence of
this lateral movement, drawbars may remain off center when cars are
uncoupled. This misalignment, if not corrected, may prevent cars
from coupling by allowing the knuckles to pass by each other. To
ensure proper coupling, railroad employees must realign drawbars
manually.
Respondent William J. Hiles was a member of a switching crew at
petitioner Norfolk & Western Railway Company's Luther Yard in
St. Louis, Missouri. His duties included coupling and uncoupling
railroad cars and aligning drawbars. On July 18, 1990, Hiles
injured his back while attempting to realign an off-center drawbar.
Hiles sued in Illinois state court, alleging that Norfolk &
Western had violated the SAA, which requires that cars be equipped
with "couplers coupling automatically by impact, and capable of
being uncoupled, without the necessity of individuals going between
the ends of the vehicles." 49 U. S. C. § 20302(a)(1)(A). Norfolk
& Western argued that the misaligned drawbar did not result
from defective equipment. The trial court granted Hiles' motion for
directed verdict on liability.
The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed. 268 Ill. App. 3d 561, 644
N. E. 2d 508 (1994). The Illinois Appellate Court recognized a deep
split of authority over the proper interpretation of the SAA, but
determined that it would not reconsider its "longstanding authority
permitting a plaintiff ... to
1 See R. Reinhardt, Workin' on the Railroad 274 (1970) (the
automatic coupler style "use[s] the principle of the hooked fingers
of the human hand").
403
recover under the Safety Appliance Act for InJuries sustained
while attempting to align a misaligned drawbar."
Id., at
565,644 N. E. 2d, at 511. The Illinois Supreme Court denied review,
and we granted certiorari, 515 U. S. 1191 (1995), to resolve the
conflict among the lower courts.2
II A
For most of the 19th century, the link-and-pin coupler was the
standard coupler used to hook together freight cars. It consisted
of a tubelike body that received an oblong link. During coupling, a
railworker had to stand between the cars as they came together and
guide the link into the coupler pocket. Once the cars were joined,
the employee inserted a pin into a hole a few inches from the end
of the tube to hold the link in place. See J. White, American
Railroad Freight Car 490 (1993) (hereinafter White). The
link-and-pin coupler, though widely used, ultimately proved
unsatisfactory because (i) it made a loose connection between the
cars with too much give and play; (ii) there was no standard design
and train crews often spent hours trying to match pins and links
while coupling cars; (iii) links and pins were frequently lost,
resulting in substantial replacement costs; and (iv) crew members
had to go between moving cars during coupling and were frequently
injured and sometimes killed.
Id., at 490-497.
2 Compare, e. g., Kavorkian v. CSX Transportation, Inc.,
33 F.3d
570 (CA6 1994), Lisek v. Norfolk & Western R. Co.,
30 F.3d
823 (CA7 1994), cert. denied, 513 U. S. 1112 (1995), Goedel v.
Norfolk & Western R. Co.,
13 F.3d
807 (CA4 1994), Reed v. Philadelphia, Bethlehem & New
England R. Co.,
939 F.2d
128 (CA3 1991), and Maldonado v. Missouri Pacific R. Co.,
798 F.2d
764 (CA5 1986), with Coleman v. Burlington Northern, Inc.,
681 F.2d
542 (CA8 1982), and Metcalfe v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
R. Co., 491 F.2d
892 (CAlO 1974).
404
In 1873, Eli H. Janney patented a knuckle-style coupler that was
to become the standard for the freight car couplers used even
today.3 See Figure 1. The coupler had a bifurcated drawhead and a
revolving hook, which, when brought in contact with another
coupler, would automatically interlock with its mate.
Figure 1
The Janney coupler had several advantages over link-andpin
couplers. Not only did it alleviate the problem of loose parts that
plagued the link-and-pin coupler,4 it also allowed railworkers to
couple and uncouple cars without having to
3 Janney was a dry goods clerk and former Confederate Army
officer from Alexandria, Virginia, who used his lunch hours to
whittle from wood an alternative to the link-and-pin coupler. See
F. Wilner, Safety: "A great investment," Railway Age, Mar. 1993, p.
53 (hereinafter Wilner).
4 Automatic couplers also made possible the use of power air
brakes, which had not been successfully used with link-and-pin
couplers because of excessive slack in the coupling. See Hearings
on S. 811 et al. before the Senate Committee on Interstate
Commerce, 52d Cong., 1st Sess. (1892), reprinted in S. Rep. No.
1049, 52d Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1892) (hereinafter Sen.
Hearings).
405
go between the cars to guide the link and set the pin.5 One
commentator described the automatic coupling operation as
follows:
"While the cars were apart, the brakeman had to make sure the
knuckle of the coupler on the waiting car stood in an open position
and that the pin had been lifted into its set position. When the
opposite coupler was closed and locked in position, the brakeman
was able to stand safely out of the way and signal the engineer to
move the cars together. When the knuckle of the coupler of the
moving car hit the lever arm of the revolving knuckle on the open
coupler, it revolved around the locked one, while concurrently the
locking pin dropped automatically from its set position into the
coupler, locking the knuckle in place. Although the brakeman had to
set up the entire situation by hand, the actual locking operation
was automatic and did not require the brakeman to stand between the
cars." Clark 191.
Though the market was flooded with literally thousands of
patented couplers,6 Janney's design was clearly among the best and
slowly achieved recognition in the industry. See
id., at
193-201. In 1888, the Master Car Builders Association Executive
Committee obtained a limited waiver of patent rights-placing much
of Janney's design in the public domain-and adopted the design as
its standard. Conversion
5 Ezra Miller is generally credited with creating the first
semiautomatic coupling device for passenger cars-known as the
Miller Hook-but it was never widely used on freight cars. See C.
Clark, Development of the Semiautomatic Freight-Car Coupler,
1863-1893, 13 Technology and Culture 170, 180-182 (1972)
(hereinafter Clark); White 505-506.
6 In 1875, there were more than 900 car coupler patents. White
498.
By 1887, the number of coupler patents had topped 4,000,
ibid., and by 1900, approximately 8,000 coupler patents had
been issued. Clark 179.
406
to the new standard proceeded slowly,7 partly as a result of the
sheer number of competing designs on the market. The lack of
standardized couplers itself caused safety problems,s and reformers
pushed Congress to pass legislation requiring the use of
standardized automatic couplers.
In 1893, satisfied that an automatic coupler could meet the
demands of commercial railroad operations and, at the same time, be
manipulated safely, see Clark 206, Congress passed the SAA. Its
success in promoting switchyard safety was stunning. Between 1877
and 1887, approximately 38% of all railworker accidents involved
coupling.
Id., at 179. That percentage fell as the railroads
began to replace link-and-pin couplers with automatic couplers. The
descent accelerated during the SAA's 7-year grace period and by
1902, only two years after the SAA's effective date, coupling
accidents constituted only 4% of all employee accidents. In
absolute numbers, coupler-related accidents dropped from nearly
11,000 in 1892 to just over 2,000 in 1902, even though the number
of railroad employees steadily increased during that decade.
7The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, for instance, adopted a
policy of putting automatic couplers on all new cars and on every
car that went into the shop for repairs. Sen. Hearings, at 27. In
1890, approximately 10% of all freight cars in use in the United
States were equipped with automatic couplers and power brakes.
Wilner 54. By 1893, approximately 16% of freight cars were so
equipped.
Ibid. Witnesses testifying before the Senate
Committee in 1892 placed the figure between 12% and 20%. Sen.
Hearings, at 12 (12% of cars fitted with Janney-style couplers);
id., at 27,42 (20% of cars fitted with mutually
interchangeable couplers).
8 The new automatic couplers had design modifications that
permitted them to couple with link-and-pin style couplers, but not
easily. See Clark 192 ("[T]he knuckle of the Janney was notched in
order to allow the opposing link to enter the drawhead to the point
of coupling ... but in practical service it was most difficult to
effect"); S. Rep. 1049, 52d Cong., 1st Sess., 5 (1892) ("These
representative men, speaking for thousands of their associates, say
that what they desire is uniformity, and that the danger of their
calling has increased rather than diminished by the introduction of
different types of couplers").
407
EMPLOYEE COUPLING ACCIDENTS, 1892-1902 9
|
| Year |
Railroad
Employees |
Employee
Accidents |
Employee
Coupler
Accidents |
Percentage
Coupler
Accidents |
|
| 1892 |
821,415 |
30,821 |
10,697 |
34.71 |
| 1893 |
873,602 |
34,456 |
11,710 |
33.99 |
| 1894 |
779,608 |
25,245 |
7,491 |
29.67 |
| 1895 |
785,034 |
27,507 |
8,428 |
30.64 |
| 1896 |
826,620 |
31,830 |
8,686 |
27.29 |
| 1897 |
823,476 |
29,360 |
6,497 |
22.13 |
| 1898 |
874,558 |
33,719 |
5,648 |
16.75 |
| 1899 |
928,924 |
37,133 |
5,477 |
14.75 |
| 1900 |
1,017,653 |
42,193 |
4,198 |
9.95 |
| 1901 |
1,071,169 |
43,817 |
2,966 |
6.77 |
| 1902 |
1,189,315 |
53,493 |
2,256 |
4.22 |
|
"[I]t shall be unlawful for any ... common carrier to haul or
permit to be hauled or used on its line any car used in moving
interstate traffic not equipped with couplers coupling
automatically by impact, and which can be uncoupled[,] without the
necessity of men going between the ends of the cars." Act of Mar.
2, 1893, 27 Stat. 531, 45 U. S. C. § 2 (1988 ed.), recodified, as
amended, 49 U. S. C. § 20302(a).10
The text of § 2 requires that rail cars be equipped with
automatic couplers and that all couplers be sufficiently
compatible
9 Clark 207.
10 In
Johnson v.
Southern Pacific Co., 196 U. S. 1, 18-19 (1904),
we clarified that the statute should be read as though there were a
comma after the word "uncoupled," so that the words "without the
necessity of men going between the ends of the cars" applies to
both coupling and uncoupling. When Congress recodified the SAA in
1994, it placed a comma behind the word "uncoupled." See 49 U. S.
C. § 20302(a)(1)(A).
408
so that they will couple on impact.
Johnson v.
Southern Pacific Co., 196 U. S. 1, 16-17 (1904).
The railroad is liable for an employee's injury or death caused by
a violation of the SAA. See
St. Louis, 1.
M. & S.
R. Co. v.
Taylor, 210 U. S. 281, 295 (1908)
("If the railroad ... use[s] cars which do not comply with the
standard, it violates the plain prohibitions of the law, and there
arises from that violation the liability to make compensation to
one who is injured by it").l1
Early SAA cases involved injuries that occurred when an employee
was forced to go between the cars during coupling operations. See,
e. g., Johnson, supra, at 2 (hand crushed between cars
during coupling);
San Antonio &
Aransas Pass R.
Co. v.
Wagner, 241 U. S. 476, 478 (1916)
(foot crushed between couplers);
Atlantic City R. Co. v.
Parker, 242 U.
S. 56, 58 (1916) (arm caught in drawhead between cars during
coupling). Our later cases extended the reach of SAA liability
beyond injuries occurring between cars during coupling to other
injuries caused by the failure of cars to automatically couple.
Affolder v.
New York, C. &
St. L. R. Co.,
339 U. S. 96, 97 (1950) (railroad employee who ran after a
runaway train caused by failure to couple lost a leg when he fell
under a car);
Carter v.
Atlanta &
St. Andrews
Bay R. Co., 338
U. S. 430, 432-433 (1949) (plaintiff successfully boarded
runaway cars that failed to couple, but was injured when the cars
collided with another train);
O'Donnell v.
Elgin,
J. &
E. R. Co., 338 U. S. 384, 385-386
(1949) (railworker killed when two runaway cars-the result of a
broken coupler-collided with cars whose couplers he was adjusting).
Liability in each of these cases was predicated on the failure of
coupling equipment to perform as required by the SAA, and we held
that the SAA creates an absolute duty requiring not only
11 We have held that the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FE
LA), 45 U. S. C. § 51
et seq., makes railroads liable for a
violation of the SAA, see
O'Donnell v.
Elgin,
J. &
E. R. Co., 338 U. S. 384, 391
(1949), although early cases, like
Johnson, supra, preceded
FELA's enactment in 1908. Hiles did not assert a negligence claim
under FELA.
409
that automatic couplers be present, but also that they actually
perform. See,
e. g., Affolder, supra, at 98;
Carter,
supra, at 433-434.
III
Hiles urges that railroads have an absolute duty to outfit their
cars with safe equipment and that the SAA is violated if an
employee is required to go between the ends of cars to manually
adjust a misaligned drawbar. We cannot agree. Hiles correctly
points out that failure to perform as required by the SAA is itself
an actionable wrong dependent on neither negligence nor proof of a
defect,12 see
Affolder, supra, at 98-99;
O'Donnell,
supra, at 390, 393, but the absolute duty to which we have
referred on numerous occasions is not breached as a matter of law
when a drawbar becomes misaligned during the ordinary course of
railroad operations.
In
Affolder, the plaintiff was working with a crew
coupling cars. The 25th and 26th cars failed to couple and, after a
few more cars were added, the first 25 cars began rolling down a
slight incline. The plaintiff ran after the runaway cars in an
attempt to board and stop them, but instead fell under a car and
lost his leg. At trial, the railroad attempted to prove that the
coupler at issue was not defective and that the knuckle on the
coupler was closed when the coupling attempt was made. Following
O'Donnell, we reaffirmed that the failure of equipment to
perform as required is sufficient to create SAA liability,
Affolder, supra, at 99 (quoting
O'Donnell, supra, at
390), but we noted that failure to couple would not create
liability if the coupler was not properly set:
"Of course [imposition of failure-to-perform liability] assumes
that the coupler was placed in a position to operate on impact.
Thus, if 'the failure of these two cars to couple on impact was
because the coupler on the Penn-
12 Hiles neither pleaded nor attempted to prove at trial that
Norfolk & Western acted negligently or that the drawbar was
defective.
410
sylvania car had not been properly opened,' the railroad had a
good defense." 339 U. S., at 99.13
In
Carter, we similarly conditioned the duty on the
coupler's being "properly set." 338 U. S., at 434; see
O'Donnell, supra, at 394, n. 7 (declining to consider "a
situation where an adequate coupler failed to hold because it was
improperly set").
In
Affolder, we predicated failure-to-perform liability
on placing the coupler "in a position to operate on impact." 339 U.
S., at 99. We implicitly recognized that certain preliminary steps,
such as ensuring that the knuckle is open, are necessary to proper
performance of the coupler and that a failure to couple will not
constitute an SAA violation if the railroad can show that the
coupler had not been placed in a position to automatically couple.
Though
Affolder involved a claimed closed knuckle, its
language was not so limited and, as a matter of common sense, could
not have been. Hiles could not reasonably complain that an
otherwise working electrical appliance failed to perform if he had
neglected to plug in the power cord. Similarly, a court cannot
reasonably find as a matter of law that an otherwise nondefective
coupler has failed to perform when the drawbar has not been placed
"in a position to operate on impact." We think
Affolder's
restriction on failure-to-perform liability logically extends to
every step necessary to prepare a nondefective coupler for
coupling, see
supra, at 404-405 (describing the ordinary
process of preparing for an automatic coupling), including ensuring
proper alignment of the drawbar.14
13 Justice Jackson, dissenting on other grounds, agreed: "Before
a failure to couple establishes a defective coupler, it must be
found that it was properly set so it could couple. If it was not
adjusted as such automatic couplers must be, of course the failure
is not that of the device."
Affolder, 339 U. S., at 101.
14 Our holding that
Affolder's restriction on liability
extends to misaligned drawbars suggests that, at least in this
case, the absence of a failed coupling attempt is of no
consequence. On this record, Hiles would not
411
Hiles contends that the distinction between a closed knuckle and
a misaligned drawbar makes a difference because opening a knuckle
can be accomplished without going between cars but realigning a
drawbar cannot. This is particularly true, Hiles argues, given that
Congress' "central policy" in enacting the BAA was to protect the
worker by obviating the necessity of going between cars. Brief for
Respondent 12-13. We decline to adopt an expansive interpretation
of § 2 that would prohibit railroad employees from going between
cars to realign slued drawbars. The language of § 2, which requires
couplers that both will couple and can be uncoupled without the
necessity of persons going between the cars, does not easily lend
itself to Hiles' interpretation. Instead, as even Hiles apparently
concedes, see Brief for Respondent 19, the text of § 2 only
requires railroads to use a particular kind of coupler with certain
attributes, and there is no question that Norfolk & Western's
cars are equipped with couplers with the necessary functional
characteristics.15
have been entitled to judgment as a matter of law even if he had
been injured during a failed coupling attempt.
15 Hiles reads into the legislative history a singular
congressional intent to keep railroad workers from going between
cars. Our construction of § 2 rests on the text of the statute and
our prior interpretations of that language. In any event, we think
Hiles' reading of the legislative history is erroneous. For
instance, Hiles selectively quotes statements made by W. E. Rodgers
during Senate Committee hearings to suggest that Congress wanted to
force the railroads to adopt a coupler that would keep railworkers
out from between cars altogether. Brief for Respondent 14. A full
reading of these statements makes clear, however, that Mr. Rodgers
believed that adoption of the Janney design, as it then existed,
would fully satisfy the requirements of § 2. Sen. Hearings, at 14.
Hiles' reliance on statements made by H. S. Haines, vice president
of the American Railway Association, is similarly misplaced. See
Brief for Respondent 15. Mr. Haines evidently thought that 500
existing couplers would satisfy the requirements of the proposed
bill. Sen. Hearings, at 41; see Hearings on Automatic Couplers and
Power Brakes before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce, 52d Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1892). If Con-
412
Adopting Hiles' reading of § 2 would require us to hold that a
misaligned drawbar, by itself, is a violation of the SAA, and we
are quite unwilling to do that. It is true that our
failure-to-perform cases made clear that the railroad will be
liable for injuries caused by malfunctioning equipment, even when
cars are equipped with automatic couplers. But we cannot agree that
a misaligned drawbar is, as a matter of law, a malfunctioning
drawbar. Historically, misaligned drawbars were an inevitable
byproduct of the ability to traverse curved track and, like the
closed knuckle in
Affolder, are part of the normal course of
railroad car operations.
We are understandably hesitant to adopt a reading of § 2 that
would suggest that almost every railroad car in service for nearly
a century has been in violation of the SAA. See
United
Transportation Union v.
Lewis, 711
F.2d 233, 251, n. 39 (CADC 1983). Our hesitance is augmented by
the enforcement scheme Congress enacted with the SAA. From its
beginning, § 6 of the SAA provided that railroads in viola-
gress had any singular purpose in enacting § 2, it was to
require the railroads to equip cars with uniformly compatible
automatic couplers that employees could operate without having to
go between the cars. See H. R. Rep. No. 1678, 52d Cong., 1st Sess.,
3 (1892) ("It is the judgment of this committee that all cars and
locomotives should be equipped with automatic couplers, obviating
the necessity of the men going between the cars"); S. Rep. No.
1049,
supra n. 8, at 6 (1892) ("What the railroad employes
need to secure greater safety in the performance of their duties is
uniformity. They want all couplers alike and perfectly
interchangeable"). We think Congress fairly intended to prohibit
the practice of placing railworkers between moving cars to guide a
link into its matching coupler pocket or, worse, into an unfamiliar
coupler cavity. Cf. Hearings on Automatic Couplers and Power Brakes
before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 52d
Cong., 1st Sess., 11 (1892) ("He goes in to make a coupling. He
does not know the conditions that exist there. He can not tell
whether it is a Janney or a Hinson, a Dowling, a Drexel, or some
other kind of a drawbar"). Contrary to Hiles' assertion, the
legislative history contains no suggestion that Congress intended
to prevent an employee from going between cars to ensure that the
knuckle is open, that the locking pin is set, see
supra, at
405, or that the drawbar is aligned.
413
tion of § 2 were liable for "a penalty of one hundred dollars
for each and every such violation." Act of Mar. 2, 1893, 27 Stat.
531, 45 U. S. C. § 6 (1988 ed.), recodified, as amended, 49 U. S.
C. § 21302(a). The amount of the penalty for a § 2 violation has
varied over the years,16 but the threat of a penalty has not. Yet
Hiles points to not a single instance in which a railroad has been
fined for misaligned drawbars. It is not the case that the
Government has simply neglected to enforce the penalty provisions
of the SAA for nearly 100 yearsP We think there is a better
explanation than that the Government has failed to enforce this
particular aspect of the SAA since its inception: A misaligned
drawbar simply is not a violation of § 2.18
Finally, relying on the railroads' experimental attempts to
develop automatic realigning devices, Hiles argues that Congress'
clear intent to protect railroad employees in coupling operations
required the railroads to "develop a mechanism for automatic
realignment of a drawbar." Brief for Respondent 27. Or, in the
words of his
amicus, "[t]he Legislative wisdom of Section 2
is that it is as flexible as technology." Brief for United
Transportation Union as
Amicus
16 The statute currently requires the Secretary of
Transportation to impose a penalty of "at least $500 but not more
than $10,000." 49 U. S. C. § 21302(a)(2).
17 See,
e. g., Chicago, B. &
Q. R. Co.
v.
United States, 220 U. S. 559 (1911) (§ 1
power brake violations);
Alabama Great Southern R. Co. v.
United States, 233 F.2d
520 (CA5 1956) (§ 2 coupler violation);
United
States v.
St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 271 F. Supp.
212 (WD Mo. 1967) (§ 9 brake violation);
United States v.
Gulf, M. & O.
R. Co., 76 F. Supp. 289 (ED La.
1948) (§ 2 coupler violation).
18 Hiles' view of § 2 also conflicts with regulations
promulgated by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) that
provide for the safety of employees who go between cars to "prepare
rail cars for coupling," 49 CFR § 218.22(c)(5) (1994), or to
"adjust a coupling device," § 218.39(a). In its proposed rulemaking
for § 218.39, the FRA explained that the proposed rule would
protect employees who place themselves between cars to couple air
hoses or adjust coupling devices, including "adjusting drawbars."
48 Fed. Reg. 45272, 45273 (1983).
414
Curiae 17. We reject this argument, for we find no such
command in the text of § 2. Congress plainly instructed the
railroads to install compatible and automatic couplers on all cars,
at a time when this basic technology had been in existence for two
decades and had received widespread testing and recognition as a
feasible technology superior to what was then in primary use. In
contrast, Hiles concedes that automatic realignment technology did
not even exist in 1893 when Congress passed the BAA, see Brief for
Respondent 26-27, and, according to Norfolk & Western,
automatic realignment has never been shown to be effective. But
this matters not, because Congress legislated working automatic
couplers for employee safety, not employee safety by whatever
method a court might deem appropriate.
The judgment of the Illinois Appellate Court is
Reversed.
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