Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/90230/chambers-vs-baltimore-ohio-r-co
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 08:20:19+00:00

Document:
This Court has jurisdiction to review the judgment on writ of error under § 709, Rev.Stat., if the opinion of the highest court of the state clearly shows that the federal question was assumed to be in issue, was decided adversely, and the decision was essential to the judgment rendered.
The right to sue and defend in the courts of the states is one of the privileges and immunities comprehended by § 2 of Art. IV of the Constitution of the United States, and equality of treatment in regard thereto does not depend upon comity between the states, but is granted and protected by that provision in the Constitution, subject, however, to the restrictions of that instrument that the limitations imposed by a state must operate in the same way on its own citizens and on those of other states. The state's own policy may determine the jurisdiction of its courts and the character of the controversies which shall be heard therein.
The statute of Ohio of 1902 providing that no action can be maintained in the courts of that state for wrongful death occurring in another state except where the deceased was a citizen of Ohio, the restriction operating equally upon representatives of the deceased whether they are citizens of Ohio or of other states, does not violate the privilege and immunity provision of the federal Constitution.
73 Ohio St. 1 affirmed.
"whenever the death of a citizen of this state has been or may be caused by a wrongful act, neglect, or default in another state, territory, or foreign country, for which a right to maintain an action and recover damages in respect thereof is given by a statute of such other state, territory, or foreign country, such right of action may be enforced in this state within the time prescribed for the commencement of such action by the statute of such other state, territory, or foreign country."
based upon that construction violate Article IV, § 2, paragraph 1, of the Constitution of the United States, which provides that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." This allegation presents the only question for our consideration.
The defendant objects to our jurisdiction to reexamine the judgment because the federal question was not properly and seasonably raised in the courts of the state. But it clearly and unmistakably appears from the opinion of the supreme court that the federal question was assumed to be in issue, was decided against the claim of federal right, and that the decision of the question was essential to the judgment rendered. This is enough to give this Court the authority to reexamine that question on writ of error. San Jose Land & Water Company v. San Jose Ranch Co., 189 U. S. 177 ; Haire v. Rice, 204 U. S. 291 .
In the decision of the merits of the case there are some fundamental principles which are of controlling effect. The right to sue and defend in the courts is the alternative of force. In an organized society, it is the right conservative of all other rights, and lies at the foundation of orderly government. It is one of the highest and most essential privileges of citizenship, and must be allowed by each state to the citizens of all other states to the precise extent that it is allowed to its own citizens. Equality of treatment in this respect is not left to depend upon comity between the states, but is granted and protected by the federal Constitution. Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C.C. 371, 380, per Washington, J.; Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, 79 U. S. 430 , per Clifford, J.; Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U. S. 107 , 133 U. S. 114 , per FULLER, C.J.; Blake v. McClung, 172 U. S. 239 , 172 U. S. 252 , per HARLAN, J.
extent the state will entertain in its courts transitory actions, where the causes of action have arisen in other jurisdictions. Different states may have different policies, and the same state may have different policies at different times. But any policy the state may choose to adopt must operate in the same way on its own citizens and those of other states. The privileges which it affords to one class it must afford to the other. Any law by which privileges to begin actions in the courts are given to its own citizens and withheld from the citizens of other states is void because in conflict with the supreme law of the land.
other states which it allowed to its own. There is therefore at least a literal conformity with the requirements of the Constitution.
But it may be urged, on the other hand, that the conformity is only superficial; that the death action may be given by the foreign law to the person killed at the instant when he was vivus et mortuus, and made to survive and pass to his representatives ( Higgins v. Railroad, 155 Mass. 176); that in such cases it is the right of action of the deceased which is brought into court by those who have it by survivorship, and that, as the test of jurisdiction is the citizenship of the person in whom the right of action was originally vested, and the action is entertained if that person was a citizen of Ohio and declined if he was a citizen of another state, there is, in a real and substantial sense, a discrimination forbidden by the Constitution.
the creation of an original cause of action in favor of a surviving widow or personal representative."
"SEC. 18. No action hereafter brought to recover damages for injuries to the person by negligence or default shall abate by reason of the death of the plaintiff; but the personal representatives of the deceased may be substituted as plaintiff, and prosecute the suit to final judgment and satisfaction."
"SEC. 19. Whenever death shall be occasioned by unlawful violence or negligence, and no suit for damages be brought by the party injured, during his or her life, the widow of any such deceased, or, if there be no widow, the personal representatives, may maintain an action for and recover damages for the death thus occasioned."
"SEC. 1. The persons entitled to recover damages for any injury causing death shall be the husband, widow, children, or parents of the deceased, and no other relative, and the sum recovered shall go to them in the proportion they would take his or her personal estate in case of intestacy, and that without liability to creditors."
"SEC. 2. The declaration shall state who are the parties entitled in such action; the action shall be brought within one year after the death, and not thereafter."
"SEC. 21. No act of the General Assembly shall limit the amount to be recovered for injuries resulting in death, or for injuries to person or property, and in case of death from such injuries the right of action shall survive, and the General Assembly shall prescribe for whose benefit such actions shall be prosecuted."
Although I do not dissent from the reasoning of the judgment, I prefer to rest my agreement on the proposition that, if the statute cannot operate as it purports to operate, it does not operate at all. I do not think that it can be presumed to mean to give to all persons a right to sue in case the Constitution forbids it to make the more limited grant that it attempts. Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540 , 184 U. S. 565 . Apart from the statute, no one can maintain an action like this in Ohio. I may add that I do not understand that there is anything in the judgment that contradicts my opinion as to the law.
Ohio Railroad Company, in the Common Pleas Court of Mahoning County, Ohio, to recover damages on account of her husband's death in Pennsylvania in 1902 -- his death having been caused, it was alleged, by the negligence of the defendant railroad company while operating a part of its line in Pennsylvania. The railroad company was brought into court by due service of summons, and there was a trial resulting in a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiff for $3,000. The case was carried upon writ of error to the Circuit Court of Mahoning County, and the judgment was there affirmed. That judgment of affirmance was reversed by the Supreme Court of Ohio, with directions to enter judgment for the railroad company.
That the laws of Pennsylvania give a right of action in favor of the widow of a deceased whose death is "occasioned by unlawful violence or negligence" is not disputed. It is equally clear that the present plaintiff's cause of action is not local, but is transitory, in its nature, and, speaking generally, can be maintained in any jurisdiction where the wrongdoer may be found and be brought before the court. Dennick v. Railroad Company, 103 U. S. 11 ; Stewart v. B. & O. R. Co., 168 U. S. 445 .
"1. It dispenses with the condition that the state in which the wrongful death occurs shall enforce in its courts the statute of this State of like character. 2. It in terms limits the right therein given to maintain an action in this state for wrongful death occurring in another state, to actions for causing the death of citizens of Ohio, where as original section 6134 a gave such right without limitation or restriction as to citizenship."
"Having regard, then, to the scope and effect of the provisions of the section amended, and to the special character of the amendments made, we think it clear that the legislature, by the adoption of amended § 6134 a [the act of 1902], undertook and intended thereby to limit and restrict the right to recover in the courts of this state for a wrongful death occurring in another state, to those cases where the person killed was at the time of his death, a citizen of Ohio."
"No action can be maintained in the courts of this state upon a cause of action for wrongful death occurring in another state, except where the person wrongfully killed was a citizen of the State of Ohio. "
for damages brought by the widow or the estate of the citizen of Pennsylvania against the railroad company, but will be open to suit by the widow or the estate of the deceased citizen of Ohio, although, by the laws of the state where the death occurred, the widow or estate of each decedent would have, in the latter state, a valid cause of action.
Is a state enactment having such effect repugnant to the clause of the federal Constitution, Art. IV, § 2, which declares that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states?" Will not that constitutional guaranty be shorn of much of its value if any state can reserve, either for its own citizens or for the estates of its citizens, privileges and immunities which, even where the facts are the same, it denies to citizens or to the estates of citizens of other states?
states is void, because in conflict with the supreme law of the land."
"The inquiry is what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are, in their nature, fundamental, which belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments, and which have at all times been enjoyed by the citizens of the several states which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What these fundamental principles are it would, perhaps, be more tedious than difficult to enumerate."
Among the particular privileges and immunities which are clearly to be deemed fundamental, the court in that case specifies the right " to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the state. "
those states, the Republic would have constituted little more than a league of states; it would not have constituted the Union which now exists."
So, in Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, 79 U. S. 430 , the Court, after referring to Corfield v. Coryell, above cited, and speaking by Mr. Justice Clifford, stated that the right "to maintain actions in the courts of the state" was fundamental, and was protected by the constitutional clause in question against state enactments that discriminated against citizens of other states.
"Its sole purpose was to declare to the several states that whatever those rights, as you grant or establish them to your own citizens, or as you limit or qualify, or impose restrictions on their exercise, the same, neither more nor less, shall be the measure of the rights of citizens of other states within your jurisdiction."
"The intention of section 2 of Article IV was to confer on the citizens of the several states a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privileges and immunities which the citizens of the same state would be entitled to under the like circumstances, and this includes the right to institute actions. "
a regulation of the internal affairs of a state cannot reasonably be characterized as hostile to the fundamental rights of citizens of other states. . . . The Constitution forbids only such legislation affecting citizens of the respective states as will substantially or practically but a citizen of one state in a condition of alienage when he is within or when he removes to another state, or when, asserting in another state the rights that commonly appertain to those who are part of the political community known as the people of the United States, by and for whom the government of the Union was ordained and established."
These cases, I think, require the reversal of the judgment of the supreme court upon the ground that it denies to the plaintiff a right secured by the Constitution of the United States. The statute of Ohio, we have seen, closes the doors of the courts of that state against the present plaintiff alone because her deceased husband was not, at the time of his death, a citizen of Ohio. Thus, every citizen of Ohio, when in another state for whatever purpose, is accompanied by the assurance on the part of his state that its courts will be open for suit by his widow or representative if his death, while in another state, is caused by the negligence or default of another person or company. But that privilege is denied by the Ohio statute to the representative of citizens of other states meeting death under like circumstances. Indeed, if a citizen of Ohio should go into another state, and, while there, willfully or by some wrongful act, neglect, or default on his part, cause the death of someone, although he might be liable to a suit for damages in the state where death occurred, yet, if sued for damages in the courts of his own state, he need only plead in bar of the action in Ohio that the decedent was not at the time of his death a citizen of Ohio. Such, it seems to me, is the operation of the statute of Ohio as it is interpreted by the court below.
hereinbefore referred to, and the former decisions of this Court, we think it must now be held to be the recognized policy and established law of this state that an action for wrongful death occurring in another state will not be enforced in the courts of this state except where the person killed was, at the time of his death, a citizen of Ohio."
"When an action is brought upon it here, the plaintiff is not met by any difficulty upon these points. Whether our courts will entertain it depends upon the general principles which are to be applied in determining the question whether actions founded upon the laws of other states shall be heard here. These principles require that, in cases of other than penal actions, the foreign law, if not contrary to our public policy, or to abstract justice or pure morals, or calculated to injure the state or its citizens, shall be recognized and enforced here, if we have jurisdiction of all necessary parties, and if we can see that, consistently with our own forms of procedure and law of trials, we can do substantial justice between the parties."
"If you go into Pennsylvania, and are killed while there, in consequence of the negligence or default of someone, your widow may have access to the Ohio courts in a suit for damages, provided the wrongdoer can be reached in Ohio by service of process."
"If you come to your death in that state by reason of the negligence or default of someone, even if the wrongdoer be a citizen of Ohio, your widow shall not sue the Ohio wrongdoer in an Ohio court for damages, because, and only because, you are a citizen of another state."
This is an illegal discrimination against living citizens of other states, and the difficulty is not met by the suggestion that no discrimination is made against the widow of the deceased because of her citizenship in another state. The statute of Pennsylvania in question had in view the protection of persons, while alive, against negligence or default causing death. It must have had that object in view. I submit that no state can authorize its courts to deny or disregard the constitutional guaranty that the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

References: § 709
 § 2
 § 2
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 6134
 § 2
 v. 
 v.