Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co.
Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co. | |
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F.2d 1174, 32 ERC 1228; 59 USLW 2295 | |
Holding | |
A shipper of a hazardous chemical by rail is not strictly liable for the consequences of a spill or other accident to the shipment en route. A shipper may, however, be held liable if a plaintiff can prove that the shipper acted negligently. | |
Court membership | |
Judge(s) sitting | Richard Posner, Daniel Anthony Manion and Michael Stephen Kanne |
Case opinions | |
Majority | Posner, joined by Manion, Kanne |
Laws applied | |
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 520 |
Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916
Background
However, several hours after the car arrived at the Blue Island
Worried that the leak may have resulted in
Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad brought suit against American Cyanamid seeking to recover the cleanup costs from American Cyanamid. The suit set forth two legal theories: (1) that American Cyanamid had negligently maintained the leased car; and (2) that, since American Cyanamid was involved in an abnormally dangerous activity, it was strictly liable for the consequences of a spill or other accident to the shipment en route.[3]
American Cyanamid moved to dismiss Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad's strict liability claim against it, but the district judge denied this motion.[3] Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad therefore moved for summary judgment and won.[3] The district judge then dismissed Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad's negligence claim so that American Cyanamid could appeal the strict liability decision to the Seventh Circuit.[4]
Opinion
Circuit Judge Posner begins by stating that this case presents a
Posner explains the relationship between negligence and strict liability as follows:
The baseline common law regime of tort liability is negligence. When it is a workable regime, because the hazards of an activity can be avoided by being careful (which is to say, nonnegligent), there is no need to switch to strict liability. Sometimes, however, a particular type of accident cannot be prevented by taking care but can be avoided, or its consequences minimized, by shifting the activity in which the accident occurs to another locale, where the risk or harm of an accident will be less..., or by reducing the scale of the activity in order to minimize the number of accidents caused by it.... By making the actor strictly liable—by denying him in other words an excuse based on his inability to avoid accidents by being more careful—we give him an incentive, missing in a negligence regime, to experiment with methods of preventing accidents that involve not greater exertions of care, assumed to be futile, but instead relocating, changing, or reducing (perhaps to the vanishing point) the activity giving rise to the accident... The greater the risk of an accident...and the costs of an accident if one occurs..., the more we want the actor to consider the possibility of making accident-reducing activity changes; the stronger, therefore, is the case for strict liability.[5]
Turning from these general principles to the case, Posner states that "we have been given no reason...for believing that a negligence regime is not perfectly adequate to remedy and deter, at reasonable cost, the accidental spillage of acrylonitrile from rail cars."[6] Instead, the court says that under the facts of this case, the chemical spill was caused by the negligence of either (a) the North American Car Corporation in failing to maintain or inspect the rail car properly; (b) American Cyanamid in failing to maintain or inspect the car; or (c) the Missouri Pacific Railroad when it had custody of the rail car.[6] Under a negligence regime, the role of the courts is to consider the evidence and reach a determination as to which party's negligence caused the spill, and the negligent party would then have to pay the cleanup costs. Under a strict liability regime, American Cyanamid would have to pay the cleanup costs, even if it did not act negligently, and the court is not convinced that there are compelling reasons to force American Cyanamid to bear the cleanup costs if it was not negligent.
The court rejected a number of arguments made by Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad as to why strict liability should be applied in this case. Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad argued that the potentially calamitous nature of a chemical spill meant that strict liability should be imposed on shippers shipping hazardous chemicals. The court, however, found that "if a tank car is carefully maintained the danger of a spill of acrylonitrile is negligible. If this is right there is no compelling reason to move to a regime of strict liability."[3]
Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad also argued that a strict liability regime would encourage manufacturers not to ship hazardous materials through densely populated cities and instead choose alternate routes. The court rejected this argument on the grounds that given the US railway system's
Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad also pointed to concerns of
The court therefore held that a shipper of a hazardous chemical by rail is not strictly liable for the consequences of a spill or other accident to the shipment en route. A shipper may, however, be held liable if a plaintiff can prove that the shipper acted negligently.
References
- ^ David Rosenberg, "The Judicial Posner on Negligence Versus Strict Liability: Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co.", in The Harvard Law Review (2007), p. 1210.
- ^ Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174, 1174 (7th Cir. 1990)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174, 1175 (7th Cir. 1990)
- ^ Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174, 1176 (7th Cir. 1990)
- ^ Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174, 1177 (7th Cir. 1990)
- ^ a b Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174, 1179 (7th Cir. 1990)
- ^ Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174, 1180 (7th Cir. 1990)
- ^ a b c Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174, 1181 (7th Cir. 1990)