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Kansas Supreme Court Reinstates Injured Railroad Worker's Damages Based on Discovery Rule

Kate Halloran April 11, 2019

An injured railroad worker’s Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) claims were not time-barred under the “discovery rule” for when a plaintiff knew or should have known about the cause of an injury, the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled. The court reinstated a $3 million judgment for the plaintiff after finding that there was sufficient evidence for a jury to determine that the plaintiff did not have knowledge of what caused his injury until later than the defendant claimed, tolling the three-year statute of limitations. (Dawson v. BNSF Ry. Co., 2019 WL 1212374 (Mar. 15, 2019).)

Charles Dawson worked for BNSF Railway from 1979 until 2011, with a six-year absence in the 1980s. Beginning in 2001, Dawson saw several doctors to treat his lower back pain. At different points in time, he was treated with medication, epidural injections, and surgery, and in 2005, he was diagnosed with degenerative disk disease. Then, on two consecutive days in 2008, Dawson was riding in a BNSF locomotive that “bottomed out excessively.” He subsequently completed an injury report form, and his supervisor sent him to the emergency room. In 2009, Dawson again sought treatment after suffering increased lower back pain and leg pain after riding over a section of rough track at work. A doctor who treated Dawson after this incident testified at deposition that Dawson’s diagnosis had changed from the 2008 incidents and that the new diagnosis was “temporally consistent” with the 2009 incident.

Dawson’s pain continued and eventually he was assigned to temporary light duty at BNSF. After he was determined to be permanently restricted and unlikely to improve with further medical treatment, he left BNSF. He then sued the railway for negligence in its design, inspection, and maintenance of the seats used in its trains, as well as in its inspection and maintenance of the locomotive engine and train tracks. Dawson claimed that this negligence over decades caused his cumulative back injuries. He also included individual claims regarding the three specific incidents from 2008 and 2009.

BNSF moved for summary judgment on the ground that the plaintiff’s claim was not filed within the three-year statute of limitations. The trial court denied the motion, finding a dispute of material fact as to when Dawson discovered the cause of his injuries. The case proceeded to trial, and a jury awarded Dawson $3.1 million. BNSF appealed, and the appellate court overturned the verdict on the statute of limitations issue.

The plaintiff appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, which delved into the discovery rule and how it applied to the facts in this case. Arising from two U.S. Supreme Court cases (Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163 (1949) and United States v. Kubrick (444 U.S. 111 (1979)), the discovery rule provides that a federal statute of limitations does not begin to run until a plaintiff “knows or has reason to know of the existence and cause of the injury which is the basis of [the] action.” The rule recognizes that some injuries—especially cumulative injuries such as those Dawson alleged—are not immediately discoverable and may develop over a long period of time before a diagnosis or cause is ascertained. FELA requires filing a claim “within three years from the day the cause of action accrued.”

Federal courts generally have held that constructive knowledge time-bars a FELA action when the evidence supports no other finding and that this typically is a question for the fact-finder. Dawson and his doctors testified that other plausible causes for his back pain existed, including his age, previous injuries from his military service, and lifestyle factors such as smoking. Doctors also did not connect Dawson’s back pain to his work for the railroad until after the 2008 incident. BNSF contended that even if Dawson did not have actual knowledge of his pain’s cause, he had constructive knowledge, and he had an affirmative duty to investigate the cause of the injury.

The Kansas Supreme Court rejected the defendant’s arguments. It found that the plaintiff’s responsibility to investigate an injury’s cause was not dispositive because that is only part of the analysis. The entirety of the evidence that goes to a plaintiff’s constructive knowledge—such as whether it was possible to determine a causal connection and whether the plaintiff had received a medical diagnosis about the cause or when—is also relevant. Since Dawson presented some evidence that he lacked constructive knowledge of his pain’s cause, the court concluded that a reasonable fact-finder could determine that his FELA claim was timely.

Kansas City, Kan., attorney Davy Walker, an attorney for the plaintiff, explained, “There is a huge difference between a person knowing he has a condition, made more symptomatic by activities at work and home, and a person having reason to know those activities may have caused the condition, especially when the mild and intermittent symptoms existed for years independent of any work-related triggers. Dawson’s treating doctors agreed that the mere fact certain activities aggravate symptoms does not mean those activities are causally related to the underlying condition. There is no evidence that Dawson knew rough-riding engines could cause, or had caused, his condition because BNSF never provided such information to him, and his doctors never told him that more than three years before he filed suit.”