Case ID: ohio-law-abs_3/html/0737-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "MACK, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 970
    PENN. R. R. CO. v. MORRISON
    U. S. Appeals, 6th Circuit
    No. 4100.
    Decided Jan. 5, 1925
    659. INTERSTATE COMMERCE — Railroad employees, engaged in moving an interstate car for the purpose of causing it to be-road employees, engaged in moving an intrastate and intrastate cars, held to have been engaged in interstate commerce.
    Attorneys—Harrington, DePord, Huxley & Smith, & Norman A. Emery, Youngstown, for Company; Day & Day and Robert H. Dawson, Cleveland, for Morrison.
    Note—In Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. v. Darling, decided Peb. 4, 1925, the court held that a brakeman, injured while riding an intrastate car down a grade on a classification track to place it with others, both interstate and intrastate, was employed in “interstate commerce.”
   MACK, C. J.

This action was brought by Laura Morrison, administratrix of the estate of James Morrison, deceased, against the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern Division of the Northeastern District of Ohio.

Morrison,, it seems, was brakeman in a shifting crew and the engine in charge of this crew had pulled out a car loaded with freight for intrastate delivery, from a train consisting largely of interstate traffic cars. The collision happended while the engine was pushing this car along one of its tracks. The lower court rendered judgment in favor of Mrs. Morrison.

Error proceedings' were instituted and the sole question for determination in the writ of 'error was whetheer or not the trial court erred in instructing the jury that the deceased, at the time of his death, was employed in interstate commerce. The Circuit Court of Appeals held:

1. But for the collision the car in question would have pulled out at 12:30 A. M. that day, with 43 other cars, many destined to points in other states.

2. Under these circumstances, the deceased was, at the time of the collision, engaged in work so closely related to interstate, commerce as to be practically a part of it.

3. This is so because at the very moment of the collision, the intrastate car was moving towards track No. 2 for the purpose of forming part of a train which was to depart within a few hours; and when it so departed in fact hauling cars, some of which were in interstate transportation.

4. As to such cars, every movement, whether a switch within one yard between two classification yards, or a haul either from the point of origin or to the point of destination, forms a part of the entire interstate transportation.

5. Railroad employees engaged in the act of moving an intrastate car for the very purpose of causing it to become part of such a train, participate in, further, and facilitate the interstate work.

Judgment affirmed.