A Need for Finality

One June day in 1953 Ray Cahill, a $75-a-week brakeman for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, was sent out to flag traffic along a stretch of track that runs down the middle of busy U.S. Route 1 in New Haven, Conn. Out of the traffic line lurched a truck. It pinned Brakeman Cahill against a railroad car, crushing his back. At that moment began a legal trail that twisted and turned until, last week, it became a national issue.

Contending that the railroad had not given him proper instructions before it sent him out to do hazardous work (he had been with the road only three months), Cahill sued the New Haven for damages. His case dragged through the courts while he and his family (he has a wife and three children) went on relief. Finally, last November, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-1 in Cahill's favor; in January the court unanimously turned down the railroad's plea for a rehearing. In the face of what clearly appeared to be a final decision, the railroad paid the permanently disabled Cahill, who is 24, a whopping damage claim of $96,358.50.

A Startling Reversal. With the money in the bank, taxfree, the Cahills went on no wild spending spree. Around $30,000 went for the attorney's fee. Approximately $40,000 went to pay other bills--hospitals, physicians, the welfare departments--and to buy a car and a small piece of property on which the Cahills started building a $14,000 house. Their only nonessential purchases were a cocker spaniel for the kids and a new coat--her first in three years--for Mrs. Cahill. The remaining $20,000 was the Cahills' money to live on during his three years at New Haven State Teachers College, where he is studying to become a high-school mathematics instructor. "We didn't have a ball," said Cahill. "We didn't even buy a television set."

But while the Cahills paid bills and made plans, the railroad went back to the Supreme Court. Exercising a seldom-used right, the New Haven attorneys asked the court to recall its earlier decision. One day last week the highest court in the land, in a 5-4 decision, reversed its decisions of last November and January. It sent the Cahill case back to the appellate court to determine whether the trial judge had improperly admitted evidence of previous accidents at the point where Cahill was injured. When the word reached Cahill he blurted: "Oh my God, you mean they're going to take it away?"

A Seized Thought. For many of the nation's lawyers, the sudden reversal was almost as much of a shock as it was for Cahill (who was somewhat comforted by a New Haven public-relations man's statement that the road is not "interested in making things hard for Cahill. I wouldn't think we'd take his house away from him."). The view of many men of the law was summed up by Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who, in a seven-page dissenting opinion, made his key point through the words of an earlier (1870-92) Supreme Court Justice, Joseph P. Bradley: "It ought to be understood . . . that this court, being a court of last resort, gives great consideration to cases of importance . . . there should be a finality somewhere."

Adding a point in his own words, Justice Black wrote: "If such summary action . . . can be taken with reference to a judgment paid only a few days ago, why could it not be taken with reference to a judgment paid a year ago?" This was a thought inevitably seized upon by others, including Georgia's Democratic U.S. Representative Prince Preston. He promptly suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court, having established its ability to reverse itself within only four months, should now do so in the case of its 1954 desegregation decision.

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