Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/236/668/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 08:09:17+00:00

Document:
which do not in their essence involve the existence of right to recover under the federal statute.
Existence of power to review the judgment of the state court under § 237, Judicial Code, rests not merely upon form, but upon substance and cannot arise from the mere assertion of a formal right which is so wanting in foundation and unsubstantial as to be devoid of merit and therefore frivolous.
While in this case the assignment of error on its face is not frivolous and gives jurisdiction to review, the proposition that the jury was misled by the instructions of the court in regard to the doctrine of assumption of risk is unfounded.
If the proof is sufficient to justify the submission of the case to the jury on the question of assumption of risk, there is no reversible error in so doing and in not instructing a verdict for defendant, and as in this case two courts below have concurred in finding that there was sufficient proof, this Court finds there was no error.
The facts, which involve the jurisdiction of this Court of writs of error to review a judgment of the state court under § 237, Judicial Code, are stated in the opinion.
Is there jurisdiction to review the action of the court below in affirming the judgment of the trial court, which was entered on the verdict of a jury, and if so, was error below committed, are the questions for decision (83 S.E. 633).
"as it comes here from a state court, our power to review is controlled by Rev.Stat. § 709, § 237, Judicial Code, and we may therefore not consider merely incidental questions not federal in character -- that is, which do not in their essence involve the existence of the right in the plaintiff to recover under the federal statute to which his recourse by the pleadings was exclusively confined, or the converse -- that is to say, the right of the defendant to be shielded from responsibility under that statute because, when properly applied, no liability on his part from the statute would result. Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Duvall, 225 U. S. 477; St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. v. Taylor, 210 U. S. 281."
authority to examine and dispose of them. The trial court gave to the jury every instruction concerning the meaning and application of the act of Congress asked by the company, and therefore there is no ground whatever for saying that the view of the statute relied upon by the company was not given to the jury. But, despite this fact, two of the nine assignments of error insist that the jury was misled concerning the doctrine of assumption of the risk applicable under the statute because of two statements as to the law on the subject, made by the court to the jury over the exception of the defendant, which are asserted to have been confusing because possibly conflicting with each other. But, while the proposition has sufficient strength to exclude the conception that the contention is frivolous, we are nevertheless of opinion that the court below was right in holding that, even upon the concession, for argument's sake, that the two charges referred to, if they had stood alone, might have tended to give to the jury a mistaken conception of the law of assumption of the risk, nevertheless there was no reason for saying that they could have produced such a result in view of the express instruction concerning the doctrine of assumption of the risk as applied to the case in hand which was given by the court to the jury in the very words asked by the company, and which was so explicit as to dispel the possibility of misconception. Whether the instructions could have produced misconception in the minds of the jury is not to be ascertained by merely considering isolated statements, but by taking into view all the instructions given and the tendencies of the proof in the case to which they could possibly be applied. And as from both of these points of view we are of opinion that there is no room whatever for the conclusion that any confusion or misconception as to the doctrine of assumption of the risk could have arisen from the particular statements which are relied upon, the proposition based upon them is without merit.
that the contention that error was committed in not taking the case from the jury is found, after an examination of the record, to be without merit.
In the argument, a contention was urged based upon some expression made use of by the trial court in refusing the request to take the case from the jury. Although we have considered the proposition and find it totally devoid of merit, we do not stop to further state the contention or the reasons which control us concerning it, as we think it is manifestly an afterthought, as it was virtually not raised in the trial court and was not included in the assignments of error made for the purpose of review by the court below, nor in those made in this Court on the suing out of the writ of error.

References: § 237
 § 237
 § 709
 § 237
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