## Facts

- Gary C. Lancaster, a 30-year-old locomotive-shop mechanic for Norfolk & Western Railway in Decatur, Illinois, experienced repeated abusive incidents by supervisors while at work.
- In 1975, a foreman angrily confronted workers and threatened Lancaster by approaching him with a broom handle and shouting at close range; Lancaster became unusually upset and briefly left work.
- In 1976, another foreman repeatedly harassed Lancaster physically and sexually, culminating in forced contact involving Lancaster’s pants and anus; Lancaster sought medical help and took leave, with anxiety diagnosed.
- Lancaster returned to work in 1977 and worked without major incident until 1979.
- In 1979, during shop work, a supervisor charged at Lancaster with the handle of a pickax and struck the doorframe above Lancaster’s head; Lancaster rapidly deteriorated afterward.
- Within about two weeks, Lancaster was diagnosed as schizophrenic, found unfit for work, and not expected to recover sufficiently to return to employment.
- Psychiatric experts testified that the pickax incident triggered a latent schizophrenia; one expert opined that, even without the pickax incident, some other event would have triggered schizophrenia at some point.

## Issues

1. Whether the supervisors’ assaultive and abusive conduct occurred within the scope of employment such that the railroad could be liable under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA).
2. Whether the action was barred by FELA’s statute of limitations, given earlier workplace incidents preceding the disabling diagnosis.
3. Whether, after finding the railroad’s conduct triggered a latent mental illness, the jury had to reduce damages to reflect the probability the condition would have manifested later from non-tort causes.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed a jury verdict for Lancaster awarding $850,000 in damages.
- The court held the railroad could be liable under FELA because the supervisors’ conduct occurred in the course of workplace supervision and discipline.
- The court held the claim was timely because the disabling injury became manifest around the 1979 incident and ensuing diagnosis.
- The court upheld the damages instructions and rejected a special instruction requiring a “probability” discount based on speculation that schizophrenia would have emerged later anyway.

## Legal Principles

- Under FELA, an employer is liable for injuries caused by the negligence or wrongful acts of its employees acting in the course of employment, including supervisory misconduct tied to workplace control or discipline.
- Mental and psychiatric injuries are compensable under FELA when supported by evidence that workplace misconduct caused or triggered the condition.
- A tortfeasor takes the plaintiff as found; when wrongful conduct triggers or aggravates a preexisting susceptibility, liability extends to the full resulting harm actually caused.
- When a defendant’s conduct is found to have caused a present, indivisible injury, damages are not reduced based on speculative predictions that the same injury might have occurred later from other causes, absent a non-speculative basis for separating the harm.

## Conclusion

The court sustained FELA liability for supervisors’ workplace assaults that triggered Lancaster’s latent schizophrenia and held that damages need not be discounted for the chance the illness might have manifested later from some other trigger once the railroad’s conduct was found to have caused the disabling condition.


Lancaster v. Norfolk & W. Ry. Co., 773 F.2d 807 (7th Cir. 1985)