## Facts

- American Cyanamid manufactured acrylonitrile, a flammable, highly toxic chemical used in industrial production.
- Cyanamid loaded approximately 20,000 gallons of liquid acrylonitrile into a leased tank car at its Louisiana plant for rail shipment to the Chicago area.
- The shipment reached Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad’s Blue Island yard in Riverdale, Illinois, within the Chicago metropolitan area.
- Indiana Harbor personnel observed acrylonitrile leaking from the tank car’s bottom outlet; the outlet lid was broken.
- After roughly two hours, the railroad stopped the leak by closing a shutoff valve accessed from the top of the car.
- Local officials ordered an evacuation of nearby areas; environmental authorities required site cleanup.
- Indiana Harbor incurred about $980,000 in decontamination and related expenses.
- Indiana Harbor sued Cyanamid under Illinois tort law, alleging negligence in maintaining the tank car and strict liability on the theory that shipping acrylonitrile by rail through a densely populated area was an abnormally dangerous activity.

## Issues

1. Whether shipping a hazardous chemical by rail through a major urban area is an abnormally dangerous activity that subjects the shipper to strict liability for spill-related losses under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 520.
2. Whether the case should proceed, if at all, on a negligence theory rather than strict liability.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed the judgment imposing strict liability on Cyanamid.
- The court held that, on these facts, shipping acrylonitrile by rail was not an abnormally dangerous activity triggering strict liability.
- The court concluded that liability for the spill, if any, depended on proof of negligence.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with allowing a negligence-based theory rather than strict liability.

## Legal Principles

- Strict liability for “abnormally dangerous activities” under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 520 focuses on whether the risk is unavoidable even with the exercise of utmost care.
- When the accident risk is materially reducible through reasonable inspection, maintenance, and handling, negligence is the appropriate liability standard, not strict liability.
- The dangerousness of the product does not itself convert routine transportation into an abnormally dangerous activity; the relevant inquiry is the nature of the activity and whether due care can prevent the harm.
- The fact that hazardous materials pass through densely populated areas does not, by itself, make rail shipment “inappropriate” for the location for purposes of § 520 when such routing is a common incident of rail commerce.

## Conclusion

The court rejected strict liability for a hazardous-chemical spill during rail transit through an urban area, holding that the transportation was not abnormally dangerous because the risk could be controlled by due care; any recovery required proof of negligence.


Indiana Harbor Belt R.R. Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174 (7th Cir. 1990)