Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/207/142/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 03:53:06+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 207 › Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co.
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.
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.
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.
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 6134a 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 § 6134a [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."
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."
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.
"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."

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