Crane v. Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Railway Company/Dissent Black

Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS join, dissenting.

Congress, not the States, passed the Federal Safety Appliance Act of 1893, 27 Stat. 531, 45 U.S.C. § 1 et seq. Consequently, I think the question of a railroad's liability to a person injured by a violation of that Act is a federal, not a state, question. Although it is true that several old cases, cited by the Court, gave the Safety Appliance Act a different interpretation, and left injured workers to whatever remedies they might have under state law, the premises of these old decisions have been thoroughly and I think properly discredited. See J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U.S. 426, 84 S.Ct. 1555, 12 L.Ed.2d 423 (1964).

The Federal Employers' Liability Act of 1908, 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq., allows railroad employees injured by violations of the Safety Appliance Act to recover against their employer, and contributory negligence of the employee is not a defense. I cannot believe that Congress intended that contributory negligence should become a defense simply because the action is brought by a nonemployee, when an employee doing the same work and subjected to the same violation of the Safety Appliance Act could clearly recover. For this reason I would hold that under federal law contributory negligence is not a defense in this case and reverse the judgment of the Iowa Supreme Court.