Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/251/259/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 04:27:18+00:00

Document:
Certiorari is the proper means of reviewing a judgment of a state court affirming an award against a railroad company under a workmen's compensation law where the federal question upon which the applicability, as distinct from the validity, of that law depends is whether the injured employee was engaged in interstate commerce. P. 251 U. S. 262.
A lineman engaged in the necessary work of wiping the insulators supporting a main wire, in use at the time as a conductor of electricity which, flowing from it through a transformer, and thence along the trolley-wires of a railroad, moved cars in interstate and intrastate commerce, held employed in interstate commerce within the Federal Employers' Liability Act. Id.
William T. Bulter, husband of respondent Mary E. Butler, was killed at Oakland, California, while employed by the Southern Pacific Company as an electric lineman. The supreme court of the state affirmed an award rendered by the California Industrial Commission against the company, and the cause is properly here by writ of certiorari.
"received an electric shock while wiping insulators, which caused him to fall from a steel power pole, producing injury which proximately caused his death."
April 22, 1908, ch. 149, 35 Stat. 65; New York Central R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U. S. 147; New York Central R. Co. v. Porter, 249 U. S. 168.
Generally, when applicability of the Federal Employers' Liability Act is uncertain, the character of the employment in relation to commerce may be adequately tested by inquiring whether, at the time of the injury, the employee was engaged in work so closely connected with interstate transportation as practically to be a part of it. Pedersen v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R. Co., 229 U. S. 146, 229 U. S. 151; Shanks v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R. Co., 239 U. S. 556, 239 U. S. 558; New York Central R. Co. v. Porter, supra; Kinzell v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. Co., 250 U. S. 130, 250 U. S. 133.
Power is no less essential than tracks or bridges to the movement of cars. The accident under consideration occurred while deceased was wiping insulators actually supporting a wire which then carried electric power so intimately connected with the propulsion of cars that, if it had been short-circuited through his body, they would have stopped instantly. Applying the suggested test, we think these circumstances suffice to show that his work was directly and immediately connected with interstate transportation, and an essential part of it.

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