## Facts

- Approximately eighteen boxcars loaded with U.S. Navy bombs exploded in Southern Pacific’s Antelope rail yard in Roseville, California, causing widespread personal injuries and property damage.
- The bombs and boxcars were owned by the United States.
- Southern Pacific, a common carrier by rail, was transporting the munitions under a contract with the U.S. Navy from Hawthorne, Nevada, to Port Chicago, California.
- Multiple plaintiffs sued Southern Pacific, including on a strict-liability theory that transporting and handling large quantities of powerful explosives near populated areas is an ultrahazardous (abnormally dangerous) activity.
- Southern Pacific moved to dismiss the strict-liability counts, arguing that a common carrier with a public duty to transport such goods is exempt from strict liability.

## Issues

1. Whether California law permits strict liability for damages from an explosion arising from a common carrier’s transportation of explosives, notwithstanding the carrier’s public duty to transport them.
2. Whether federal law displaces state tort law for strict-liability claims arising from a rail carrier’s transportation of U.S. military munitions.

## Decision

- The court applied California tort law because no federal statute or federal rule governed strict liability for the accident.
- The court denied Southern Pacific’s motion to dismiss the strict-liability claims.
- The court held that, at the pleading stage, Southern Pacific was not categorically exempt from strict liability merely because it was a common carrier performing a public duty.
- The court declined to treat the Restatement (Second) of Torts common-carrier exception as controlling, concluding California law had not adopted that exemption.

## Legal Principles

- In the absence of controlling federal law, state tort law supplies the rule of decision for strict-liability claims arising from accidents occurring within the state.
- California strict liability for ultrahazardous (abnormally dangerous) activities focuses on risk allocation and loss spreading; the actor engaged in the dangerous activity may bear accident costs even if the activity is socially useful or compelled.
- A common carrier’s legal obligation to transport hazardous materials does not, by itself, bar strict liability under California law.
- At the motion-to-dismiss stage, allegations that transporting large quantities of explosives through populated areas creates extraordinary, non-eliminable risk may support an ultrahazardous-activity strict-liability theory.

## Conclusion

The court permitted plaintiffs to proceed on a California strict-liability theory for ultrahazardous activity, holding that a railroad transporting military explosives could be strictly liable for explosion-related damages and was not automatically shielded by its common-carrier status or public duty to transport such goods.


Chavez v. S. Pac. Transp. Co., 413 F. Supp. 1203 (E.D. Cal. 1976)