State v. Chaparral Steel Company

• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas
• Decided: July 9, 1997
• Docket: 10-97-00013-CV
• Status: Published

Opinion

State v. Chapparral Steel Co

IN THE

TENTH COURT OF APPEALS

No. 10-97-013-CV

     THE STATE OF TEXAS,

                                                                              Appellant

     v.

     CHAPARRAL STEEL COMPANY,

                                                                              Appellee

From the 40th District Court

Ellis County, Texas

Trial Court # 50334

O P I N I O N

     We must decide whether the Railroad Clearance Act (the Act) applies to tracks owned by a non-railroad company, and if so, whether the applicable provisions of the Act have been preempted by the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Act. Because we find that the Act applies and has not been preempted, we will reverse the summary judgment and remand the cause for a determination of the amount of penalties due to the State.

FACTS

      The Attorney General, at the request of the Texas Railroad Commission (the State), sued Chaparral Steel Company (Chaparral) for civil penalties after a company employee was crushed to death between a train and a retaining wall at the company’s plant site. The State charged violation of the Texas Railroad Clearance Act (the Act). Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 6559a (Vernon 1925). Chaparral denied that the Act applied, because it is a private corporation engaged in manufacturing and recycling steel. All materials going in and out of the steel plant are moved by rail, including raw materials, scrap, and finished products. Chaparral owns and maintains its own private system of railroad tracks, switches, spurs, and rail cars (all on its plant site) to conduct its steel business.

      After the fatal accident, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited Chaparral for a safety hazard for maintaining a dangerous situation created by having inadequate clearance around the rail tracks. To settle this citation, Chaparral paid a $5,000 penalty and agreed to: (l) implement an “absolute work rule” prohibiting employees from working in that area when boxcars were present; (2) conduct safety training concerning the hazards; and (3) install warning signs identifying the danger and telling employees to avoid the area when the track had cars on it. Because of this action, Chaparral claims federal law has preempted the State in regulating this particular safety hazard and therefore the Act does not apply.

      Both the State and Chaparral moved for summary judgment. Chaparral’s motion was based on two separate grounds, and the trial court granted it without specifying on which ground (or both) it was granted. The State thus attacks both grounds on appeal. We will consider them in the order of the State’s contentions, first that the Texas Railroad Clearance Act of 1925 applies even though Chaparral is not a “railroad,” and second that the federal government, via OSHA regulations, has not preempted state authority in this area. The record on appeal is complete because findings of fact and conclusions of law have no place in a summary judgment proceeding. Linwood v. NCNB, 885 S.W.2d 102, 103 (Tex. 1994).

STATUTE

      The Act was passed in 1925. In summary, section 1 requires 22 feet of vertical clearance from the top of the rails; section 2 requires 8 ½ feet of clearance from the center of the rail line; section 3 applies these clearances to projections as well as structures, with section 3a “grandfathering” certain existing or under-construction nonconforming structures; section 4 authorizes penalties; section 5 allows the Railroad Commission to grant deviation permits in certain cases; and section 6 contains procedural enactment details.

      The plain and common meaning of the words as used is the standard with which this Court must review statutory language. Moreno v. Sterling Drug, Inc., 787 S.W.2d 348, 352 (Tex. 1990). Furthermore, statutory construction should evaluate the entire document rather than focus on separate sections. Durish v. Channelview Bank, 908 S.W.2d 273, 275 (Tex. App.—Austin 1991, writ denied). When a court is interpreting the language in a statute, the words and terms the legislature used must be considered in their plain and common meanings. Monsanto Co. v. Cornerstones Mun.Util.Dist., 865 S.W.2d 937, 939 (Tex. 1993).

      Chaparral’s particular challenge to coverage focuses on comparing the wording found in Sections 1 and 2 regarding who is doing the building. Section 1 refers to a long list of constructed items “built over the tracks of a railway, or over the tracks of railroads, by the State, or by a county, municipality, a railroad company or other corporation, firm, partnership, or natural person. . . .” Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 6559a (Vernon 1925) (emphasis added). Chaparral does not contest that section 1 of the Railroad Clearance Act applies to it; rather it argues that because the language in section 2 does not follow the identical language in section 1, the Legislature must have intended that a different group of entities be covered.

      Section 2 reads:

All loading platforms and all houses and structures, and all fences, and all lumber, wood and other materials hereafter built, placed or stored along the railroads of this State, either on or near the right of way of the main lines, or on or near any spur, switch or siding of any such railroad shall be so built, constructed, or placed that there shall be not less than eight and one-half (8 ½) feet space from the center of such main line, spur, switch, or siding to the nearest edge of the platform, or to the wall of the building, or to the lumber, wood, or other material.

Id., art. 6559b (Vernon 1925) (emphasis added). Because the retaining wall is the type of structure covered under section 2 of the statute, Chaparral argues that this is the controlling section, and that for the Act to apply at all, the company would have to be a “railroad of this state” as the phrase is used in section 2.

      It then argues that it is not “a railroad of this state” because that phrase in this context means a common carrier. We disagree. We find no authority for such a narrow definition of “railroad.” Early cases decided before the enactment of the Railroad Clearance Act held precisely the opposite. E.g., Kirby Lumber Co. Receivers v. Owens, 120 S.W. 936 (Tex. Civ. App. 1909) and Consolidated Kansas City Smelting & Ref. Co. v. Schulte, 176 S.W. 94 (Tex. Civ. App.— El Paso 1915, writ ref’d). We agree with the State that the plain meaning of this phrase refers to the physical location of the rails, i.e., they are in Texas. “Railroad of this state” refers to physical facilities, not to ownership. Section 1 plainly includes Chaparral as an entity which must provide proper clearances for tracks located within the State of Texas, with section 1 describing the types of obstructions in vertical relation to the track and section 2 describing them in horizontal relation to the track.

      We believe the plain meaning of the statute is that all railroad tracks in the State must be kept free of obstructions. The legislature in 1925 decided that the standard open area around the tracks would be 8 ½ feet horizontally from the center of the track and 22 feet vertically from the top of the rails. The plain meaning allows for no other interpretation. The State’s first point of error is sustained.

FEDERAL PREEMPTION

      The State’s second point of error attacks the defense that the federal government has preempted regulations in this area by the Occupational Safety and Health Act. 29 U.S.C.A. § 651 (1970). The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2, establishes the principle that when state and federal law conflict, federal law will prevail unless the regulated area is clearly within a state’s reserved power. Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131, 138, 108 S. Ct. 2302, 2307, 101 L.Ed. 2d 123, 130 (1988). A court interpreting a federal statute pertaining to an area of state authority should assume that the historic police powers of the States are not superseded by the federal act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress. Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 33l U.S. 218, 230, 67 S.Ct.1146, 1152, 91 L.Ed. 1447, 1452 (1947). Chaparral claims that the citation it received from OSHA inspectors for a retaining wall having been built too close to its tracks shows that Congress has preempted this State regulation. This citation, however, was issued under the “general duty to maintain a safe workplace” provision of the OSHA act, and there is no other federal provision cited which governs clearances around railroad tracks.

      Chaparral relies on a recent decision by the United State Supreme Court, Gade v. National Solid Waste Mgmt. Ass’n., 505 U.S. 88, 112 S.Ct. 1274, 120 L.Ed.2d 73 (1992), as authority for the proposition that federal law should be held to have preempted the Texas Act. Gade is a five-to-four decision with one of the majority justices filing a separate opinion concurring in part of the opinion. It recognizes that preemption may be either explicitly or implicitly contained in a statute’s structure. Id., 505 U.S. at 98, 112 S.Ct. at 1283. This case dealt with a very specific area— the training, testing, and licensing of hazardous waste disposal employees—which had already been regulated by federal law. Furthermore, the state plan was extensive, thoroughly developed, and subjected employers and employees to an additional set of standards. This overlapping of authority in the specific area is very different than the issue now before this court with the Texas Act. There is no parallel federal regulation specifying railroad clearances. The OSHA “general duty” clause is just that: a very broad, nonspecific statement that employers in general have an obligation to provide a safe environment for their employees. It has been specifically recognized that the general duty clause does not conflict with state standards. Puffer’s Hardware, Inc. v. Donavan, 742 F.2d 12, 16 (1st Cir. 1984). Indeed, it would not make sense for the general duty clause to supersede all specific standards enacted by state authorities to encourage the kind of workplace that OSHA regulations were attempting to ensure.

      Preemption, furthermore, occurs only to the extent that a state law interferes with or is contrary to a federal law, and even then the state statute is void only to the extent that it actually conflicts with the federal law. See Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 142-144, 83 S.Ct. 1210, 1217-19, 10 L.Ed.2d 248, 254-55 (1963). Applying this principle to Chaparral, if Chaparral had complied with the Act, the hazardous condition would not have existed to trigger a citation for violating the general duty an employer has to maintain a safe working environment.

      Chaparral also argues that Section 1910.145(c)(3), C.F.R., regulates the hazardous track situation to the exclusion of the Texas Act because that section was also referred to in the citation. Entitled “Specifications for accident prevention signs and tags,” its aim is to standardize color and design for safety signs. In addition, the next to last sentence of subsection (a) Scope reads:

These specifications are intended to cover all safety signs except those designed for streets, highways, railroads, and marine regulations.

We hold that neither this section concerning signs for hazardous situations nor the general duty clause of the OSHA act preempts the Texas Act. The State’s second point of error, that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment on the basis that the clearance law is preempted by the OSHA act, is sustained.

      At oral argument, the parties agreed that in the event of a reversal the cause should be remanded for a determination of the amount of penalties to which the State may be entitled under the Act. Accordingly, we remand the cause to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

                                                                               BILL VANCE

                                                                               Justice

Before Chief Justice Davis,

      Justice Cummings, and

      Justice Vance

Reversed and remanded

Opinion delivered and filed July 9, 1997

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