ELISHA EDWARDS, APPELLANT,
v.
PACIFIC FRUIT EXPRESS COMPANY, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
The court held that Pacific Fruit Express Company is not a common carrier by railroad for the purposes of the Federal Employers' Liability Act.
An injured employee of Pacific Fruit Express Company (P.F.E.) sued, claiming P.F.E. is a common carrier by railroad. P.F.E. owns and operates a large …
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Common Carrier By Railroad cases and more on FLexlaw
PER CURIAM:
This is an appeal from a district court determination that Pacific Fruit Express Company (P. F. E.) is not a “common carrier by railroad.” Appellant, an injured P. F. E. employee, claims that P. F. E. is such a common carrier. At stake is appellant’s attempt to proceed under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. § 51, et seq.
P. F. E. is a large refrigerator car company. It owns approximately 25,000 refrigerator cars and carries-about 28% of all refrigerated goods moving by rail. P. F. E. deals directly with the shipper and, among other activities, maintains a service by which it keeps the shipper posted as to the whereabouts of its goods in transit, thus allowing the shipper to order goods diverted from one destination to another. In asking this court to decide that P. F. E. is a “common carrier by railroad,” appellant necessarily asks that we overrule the case of Gaulden v. Southern Pac. Co., 78 F.Supp. 651 (N.D.Calif.), aff’d 174 F. 2d 1022, which construed the term narrowly to exclude refrigerator car companies.* Were the slate clean, we might well be convinced by appellant’s argument for a broader definition, but, as it is not, we choose to follow the unanimous line of authority and affirm. We note that since Gaulden, supra, was decided in 1949, Congress has not acted to bring refrigerator car company employees under F. E. L. A. protection.
*
Gaulden, supra, has been followed in Hetman v. Fruit Growers Express Co., 3 Cir., 346 F. 2d 947; Moleton v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 118 Utah 107, 219 P. 2d 1080, cert. denied, 340 U.S. 932, 71 S.Ct. 495, 95 L.Ed. 672; Aguirre v. Southern Pacific Co., 232 Cal.App.2d 636, 43 Cal. Rptr. 73.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Edwards v. Pac. Fruit Express Co., 390 U.S. 538 (U.S. 1968)
Authorities Cited
- Lazarov v. Arnold Schwinn & Co., 340 U.S. 932 (U.S. 1951)
- Mine Hill & Schuylkill Haven R.R. Co. v. Smith, 340 U.S. 932 (U.S. 1951)
- United States v. Landgraf, 174 F.2d 1022 (3d Cir. 1949)
- Sweet v. B. F. Goodrich Co., 174 F.2d 1022 (6th Cir. 1949)
- Hetman v. Fruit Growers Express Co., 346 F.2d 947 (3d Cir. 1965)