Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-04-10
IMPORTANT
 LEGAL POINT Arguments in inc United States Supreme Court on Employ
 CTS Liability Law
IN THE LOWER COURTS
Railroads Claim Through Their Attor. neys That Congress Could Not Make Laws 10 Hold Them
 Liable 10 Employees.

washington, April 1O.-Argument
 will be begun to-day in the supreme
 court of the United States in the two
 cases of Damsell Howard and N. C..
 Brooks, involving the constitutional
 ity of the employers liability law,
 holding railroads engaged in inter state commerce responsible for dam ages to employees when caused by the
 neglect of fellow employees or de- f1cient appliances. In both cases the trial courts held against the validity of the statute.
 In the Brooks case Mrs N. c. Brooks of Kansas brought suit against the Southern Pacific Co in the United States circuit court for the western district of Kentucky, be- cause the company is Kentucky cor poration, to recover $25,000 dam ages for the death of her son, killed in an accident while employed as a locomotive fireman on a Southern Pacific train in Nevada. The case was tried before Judge Evans, who held the law to be unconstitutional, both because it does not fall within the scope of the authority given to congress to regulate interstate com merce and at the same time it un- dertakes to regulate commerce with in the states.
 In the Howard case the suit was for $20,000 damages for the acci- dental killing of the plaintiffs hus- band, fireman on the Illinois Gen. tral railroad. near Memphis. Tenn. The case was tried before Judge Mo- Call in the United States circuit court for the western district of Tennessee, who also held the law to be invalid on the two grounds that liability for accident cannot be regulated under the commerce clause of the constitu- tion, and that. even if it could be, the authority would not extend to the regulation of interstate com merce, which he. like Judge Evans, asserted was undertaken by the law.
 The government was not at first party to either of the suits, but since the law has been attacked 1t has intervened and the department of justice will be represented in the argument. The attorney general has filed an exhaustive brief in the case in which he strenuously upholds the law.
 On the point as to whether con- gress has the power to regulate the instrumentalities of interstate com merce the attorney general contends that such regulation is in line with the regulation of interstate com merce itself, and he asserts that the courts have frequently recognized the power to regulate the liability of common carriers. Tt is difficult." he proceeds, to see why, if congress may regulate the liability of common carriers and others engaged in inter- state commerce to strangers. it may not regulate their liability to their | employees, the protection of interstate | commerce being as much involved in | the one case as in the other.
 Tt would be strange indeed if it | should be held that congress can pro- tect everything and everybody con- nected with interstate commerce. the carrier. the passenger, the stranger, the merchandise-but | could not protect the persons em- ployed to carry it on. those that bear the heat and burden of the day. s..' With reference to the applica- bility of the law to railroad em- ployes whose duties are confined to ,ne state. he says:
 Tt is the carrier and not its em- ployes that the act seeks to regulate, md the carrier is subject to such regulations because it is engaged in interstate commerce. It is submit ed that congress can make a com non carrier engaged in interstate commerce liable to any one for it's negligence who is affected by it: and f it can do that, necessarily 1t can make such carrier liable to all of its i'm n1ovee |"