Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Gottshall, 512 U.S. 532, 34 (1994)

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Cite as: 512 U. S. 532 (1994)

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

burden upon society." Id., at 369, 372. The court held that neither concern barred recovery in Gottshall's case. The genuineness of Gottshall's claim appeared not just in the manifestations of his distress, the court said, but also in the extraordinarily close, 15-year friendship between Gottshall and Johns, the decedent. Id., at 371. Liability to bystanders, the court concluded, would be far less burdensome in the FELA context, where only close co-workers are potential plaintiffs, than in the context of a common-law rule applicable to society as a whole. Id., at 372. In this regard, the Court of Appeals again recalled, this Court has constantly admonished lower courts that "recovery [under the FELA] should be liberally granted," ibid., "so that the remedial and humanitarian goals of the statute can be fully implemented," id., at 373.

Satisfied that Gottshall had crossed the "genuine and severe" injury threshold, the Court of Appeals inquired whether he had a triable case on breach of duty and causation. Id., at 374. Here, the court emphasized that Gott-shall's distress was attributable not to "the ordinary stress of the job," id., at 375, but instead, to Conrail's decision to send a crew of men, most of them 50 to 60 years old and many of them overweight, out into 97-degree heat at high noon, in a remote, sun-baked location, requiring them to replace heavy steel rails at an extraordinarily fast pace without breaks, and without maintaining radio contact or taking any other precautions to protect the men's safety, id., at 376-377.

The Court of Appeals stated, further, that even if Conrail could be said to have acted reasonably up to the time of Johns' death, "its conduct after the death raises an issue of whether it breached a legal duty." Id., at 378. The Conrail supervisor required the crew to return to work immediately after Johns' corpse was laid by the side of the road, covered but still in view. Ibid. The next day, Gottshall alleged, the supervisor "reprimanded him for administering CPR to Johns," id., at 359, then pushed the crew even harder under

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