Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/227/601.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 01:29:01+00:00

Document:
[227 U.S. 601, 602] Messrs. Maxwell Evarts, P. L. Williams, and E. M. Bagley for plaintiff in error.
[227 U.S. 601, 605] Messrs. Edward M. Cleary, Bert Schlesinger, Alfred W. Agee, and James B. McCracken for defendants in error.
Postoffice Department, Washington, D. C.
The bearer hereof, Charles Albert Schuyler, has been appointed an assistant chief clerk railway mail service, with headquarters Ogden, Utah, and will be obeyed and respected accordingly. Railroad compaines are requested to extend to the holder of this commission the facilities of free transportation on the lines named on opposite page. If fare is charged, receipt should be given. Valid only when issued through the office of the Second Assistant Postmaster General and countersigned by James E. White.
The deceased had been called to go from Ogden, Utah, to Oakland, California, on account of the illness of his child. The child having died, he set out to return from Oakland to Ogden, and took the mail train in question with the knowledge of the train agent and conductor in charge, using as evidence of his right to transportation the [227 U.S. 601, 607] commission above quoted. It was on this interstate journey that the train was derailed and the deceased came to his death, as already mentioned.
The defense (so far as here pertinent) was that the deceased was not traveling upon any official business that entitled him to free transportation under his commission, and that in riding free he was violating the act of Congress of June 29, 1906, commonly called the Hepburn act (34 Stat. at L. 584, 585, chap. 3591, 1, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, pp. 1286, 1287), which forbids common carriers subject to the provisions of the act, after January 1, 1907, to 'directly or indirectly issue or give any interstate free ticket, free pass, or free transportation for passengers, except . . . to railway mail service employees, postoffice inspectors, customs inspectors, and immigration inspectors; . . . and any person, other than the persons excepted in this provision, who uses any such interstate free ticket, free pass, or free transportation, shall be subject to a like penalty.' It was therefore contended that the deceased was a trespasser, and that the defendant was under no legal duty to care for his safety.
The court held that there was no evidence to support a finding that the deceased was traveling on appellant's train in the discharge, or in pursuance, of duties pertaining to the railway mail service; and that upon the evidence adduced the only permissible inference was that he left Ogden and went to Oakland solely on account of the death of his child, and that he was on the return journey of that mission when the train was derailed.
In dealing with the questions of law arising from this state of facts, the court held, first, that the Hepburn act does not forbid a carrier from giving free interstate transportation to railway mail service employees when not on duty, and when traveling for their own benefit or pleasure, and, secondly, 'Though the construction which we have given the Hepburn act should not be correct, and though it was unlawful for the appellant to give, and the deceased to receive, free transportation on his commission when he was not on duty, yet we are also of the opinion that, under all the circumstances of the case, the appellant, having undertaken and assumed to carry and transport the deceased as a passenger by reason of the commission, cannot escape liability for the consequences of its negligence on that ground.' And again: 'We are of the opinion that when a common carrier accepts a person as a passenger, he is not permitted to deny that he [227 U.S. 601, 610] owes to him the duty of diligence, prudence, and skill which, as carrying on a public employment, he owes to all his passengers, and that he cannot escape liability for a negligent performance of that duty, resulting in injury, by urging that the pass or commission was issued, or the gratuitous carriage permitted by him, in violation of law.' As authority for this proposition the court cited Carroll v. Staten Island R. Co. 58 N. Y. 126, 17 Am. Rep. 221; Delaware, L. & W. R. Co. v. Trautwein, 52 N. J. L. 169, 7 L.R.A. 435, 19 Am. St. Rep. 442, 19 Atl. 178; 5 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 2d ed. 508, and other authorities.
But whether-assuming that question to be answered in the affirmative- the relation of carrier and passenger arises in the case of gratuitous passage under circumstances such as are presented in this case is (in the absence of an act of Congress regulating the matter) a question not of Federal but of state law.
It is settled by numerous decisions of this court that where the decision in the state court adverse to the plaintiff in error proceeds upon two independent grounds, one of which, not involving a Federal question, is sufficient to sustain the judgment, the writ of error will be dismissed or the judgment affirmed, according to circumstances. Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 635, 636, 22 L. ed. 429, 444; De Saussure v. Gaillard, 127 U.S. 216, 234 , 32 S. L. ed. 125, 132, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1053; Hale v. Akers, 132 U.S. 554, 565 , 33 S. L. ed. 442, 446, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 171; Hopkins v. McLure, 133 U.S. 380 , 33 L. ed. 660, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 407; Johnson v. Risk, 137 U.S. 300 , 34 L. ed. 683, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 111; Beaupre v. Noyes, [227 U.S. 601, 611] 138 U.S. 397 , 34 L. ed. 991, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 296; Hammond v. Johnston, 142 U.S. 73, 78 , 35 S. L. ed. 941, 942, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 141; Giles v. Teasley, 193 U.S. 146, 160 , 48 S. L. ed. 655, 658, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 359; Allen v. Arquimbau, 198 U.S. 149, 154 , 49 S. L. ed. 990, 993, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 622; Leathe v. Thomas, 207 U.S. 93, 98 , 52 S. L. ed. 118, 120, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 30. In Murdock v. Memphis and Beaupre v. Noyes this court affirmed the judgments of the state court. In the other cases cited the writs of error were dismissed without considering the Federal questions.
Except for two contentions of the plaintiff in error, now to be mentioned, a dismissal of the writ of error would necessarily follow in the present case, since the second ground of decision adopted in the state court is manifestly independent of the first, and is fully sufficient to support the judgment; and except for what follows it involves no question of Federal right.
It is insisted (a) that there is no presumption that the railroad company violated the prohibition of the Hepburn act by granting to Schuyler a free interstate ride, and that there is no evidence in the record to support such conclusion; and while it is conceded that ordinarily, upon writ of error to a state court, this court does not review the findings of fact, yet it is insisted that in this case a Federal right has been denied as the result of a finding of fact which is without support in the evidence; that the evidence is before us in the record by which that insistence may be tested; and that the status of Schuyler, as an interstate passenger, is a mixed question of law and fact, so that it is incumbent upon us to analyze the evidence to the extent necessary to give to plaintiff in error the benefit of its asserted Federal right. The insistence as to the power and duty of this court in such a case is well founded. Kansas City Southern R. Co. v. C. H. Albers Commission Co. 223 U.S. 573, 591 , 56 S. L. ed. 556, 565, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 316; Cedar Rapids Gaslight Co. v. Cedar Rapids, 223 U.S. 655, 668 , 56 S. L. ed. 597, 604, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 389; Creswill v. Grand Lodge, K. P. 225 U.S. 246, 261 , 56 S. L. ed. 1074, 1080, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 822. We also agree there is no presumption that the railroad company gave free transportation, and that this was a fact to be established by evidence. [227 U.S. 601, 612] Accepting the duty to review this question of fact, we have examined the evidence in the record and find that it fairly supports the conclusion of the state court that the deceased was accepted by plaintiff in error as a gratuitous passenger.
But, finally, it is argued (b) that it was beyond the power of the state court to 'read into the Hepburn act an exception in favor gratuitous passengers;' thereby (as is said) enlarging the class to whom Congress limited the right of free interstate transportation. This is ingenious, but, as we think, unsound. As applied to the concrete case, it is equivalent to saying that the operation of the Hepburn act is such as to deprive one who, in good faith and without fraud, and with the consent of the carrier, but in actual, though unintentional, violation of the prohibition of the act, accepts a free passage in interstate transportation, of the benefit of a rule of local law that renders the carrier in such circumstances responsible for exercising care for the passenger's safety because the carrier has voluntarily undertaken the burden of such care. But the act itself declares what penalty shall be imposed for a violation of its prohibition: 'Any common carrier violating this provision shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and for each offense, on conviction, shall pay to the United States a penalty of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than two thousand dollars, and any person, other than the persons excepted in this provision, who uses any such interstate free ticket, free pass, or free transportation, shall be subject to a like penalty.' This penalty is not to be enlarged by construction. Neither the letter nor the spirit of the act makes an outlaw of him who violates its prohibition by either giving or accepting gratuitous interstate carriage. The deceased no more forfeited his life, limb, or safety, and no more forfeited his right to the protection accorded by the local law to a passenger in his situation, than the carrier [227 U.S. 601, 613] forfeited its right of property in the mail car upon which the deceased rode. His right to safe carriage was not derived, according to the law of Utah, from the contract made between him and the carrier, and therefore was not deduced from the supposed violation of the Hepburn act. It arose from the fact that he was a human being, of whose safety the plaintiff in error had undertaken the charge. With its consent he had placed his life in its keeping, and the local law thereupon imposed a duty upon the carrier, irrespective of the contract of carriage. The Hepburn act does not deprive one who accepts gratuitous carriage, under such circumstances, of the benefit and protection of the law of the state in this regard.

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