Court Opinion

ID: 9673761
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:18:05.474364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:23.971943
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING.
Mr. Justice Hart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In his motion for rehearing, respondent for the first time contends that this is a case under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act and is governed by the provisions of the limitations section of that Act, 45 U. S. C. A., sec. 56, for the reason that “since the petition alleged that the Respondent was engaged in iriterstate commerce, and that the Plaintiff was working on a switch engine, the allegation brings the case squarely within the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.”
As we stated in our original opinion, the petitioner pleaded that the respondent was operating the railroad in interstate and foreign commerce, but petitioner failed to allege that he was injured while he was employed by the respondent in such commerce. Petitioner’s specific allegations were that he and the rest of his crew were operating a switch engine “engaged in the transportation, switching and handling of freight cars and passengers in and around the City of Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas.” With the pleadings in this condition we concluded that the petitioner had failed to allege a case coming within the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
Respondent cites Kach v. Monessen Southwestern Ry. Co., 3 Cir., 151 Fed. (2d) 400; Atlantic Coast Line R. R. v. Meeks, 30 Tenn. App., 520, 208 S. W. (2d) 355; Trucco v. Erie R. Co., 353 Pa. 320, 45 Atl. (2d) 20; and Maxie v. Gulf, M. & O. R. Co., 356 Mo. 633, 202 S. W. (2d) 904, to sustain his contention that the petitioner’s pleadings bring the case within the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, as amended in 1939. While it is true that these cases hold that the 1939 amendment eliminated the necessity of showing that at the very time of the injury the employee was engaged in interstate commerce, still they recognize that the employee must, as the Act provides, show that his duties at least in part are the furtherance of interstate or foreign commerce or that they affect such commerce directly or closely and substantially. We do not think that the petitioner’s pleadings meet this requirement, although we are somewhat in doubt as to the effect of the 1939 amendment to the Federal *485Act in the absence of an authoritative construction of it by the Supreme Court of the United States.
It is possible that it will be held, as respondent contends, the law to be, that practically every employee of a railroad handling interstate business is within the terms of the amended . Act. If so, and if pleadings such as those of the petitioner in this case are held to bring the case within the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, then we are of the opinion that the petitioner’s action would not be barred by the limitations provision of that Act. As this court stated in Pope v. Kansas City, M. O. Ry. Co. of Texas, 109 Texas 311, 320, 207 S. W. 514, 517, “the United States Supreme Court appears to have certainly indicated that it would adopt a liberal course in saving substantial rights under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act from the bar of limitation.” Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Wulf, 226 U. S. 570, 33 Sup. Ct. 135, 57 L. Ed. 355; Seaboard Air Line v. Renn, 241 U. S. 290, 36 Sup. Ct. 567, 60 L. Ed. 1006. This court is of course bound to follow the construction of the Act by the Supreme Court of the United States. While the precise question here presented has apparently not been decided by that court, we think that it follows from decisions in analagous cases that the amendment of the petitioner’s pleading changing the capacity in which the respondent is sued would not let in limitations under the Federal Act. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Wulf, supra; Seaboard Air Line v. Renn, supra; 54 C. J. S. Limitations of Actions, sec. 275.
The respondent’s motion for rehearing is overruled
Opinion delivered February 15, 1950.