Union Pacific Railroad Company, a Corporation v. Laverl Johnson and Joleen Johnson, Husband and Wife, and Pacific Fruit Express Company, a Corporation

Our first decision herein, Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Johnson, 9 Cir., 233 F.2d 427 , was peremptorily reversed on January 14, 1957, by the Supreme Court, Johnson v. Union Pacific, 352 U.S. 957 , 77 S.Ct. 359 , 1 L.Ed.2d 316 , in the following words:

This is a case where LaVerl Johnson suffered horrible injuries as an employee Pacific Fruit Express Company in a .transformer station at Pocatello, Idaho. For that he had a workmen’s compensation award, but he sought more in the form of a judgment against Union Pacific. This he obtained as a result of a jury verdict in the district court. Our reversal was on the ground that we believed Idaho law would not require a supplier of electricity to insist that a consumer of electricity (under penalty of discontinuance of current) rebuild an electrical device with the most modern safety appliances when the apparatus was modern at the time it was built. (This opinion generally will presuppose a reading and familiarity with our earlier decision.)

Naturally we are now confronted with the problem of the scope of our present review. If the Supreme Court had intended to reinstate the district court’s judgment, it would have done so. This…