Court Opinion

ID: 9808968
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:56:48.598027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:23:04.362803
License: Public Domain

Clare, C. J.,
dissenting: It is established by the verdict in this case that the defendant was guilty of negligence in allowing a collision of two trains in South Carolina, re-> suiting in injuries to plaintiff causing damages to him to the amount of $1,800, and that he was not guilty of contributory negligence. There is no exception calling in question the correctness of the trial in these respects. The defendant relies upon a discharge or release by reason of benefits received from the “Atlantic Coast Line Relief Department.”
When the action is upon a contract made or a tort committed in another State, the laws of that State must be taken into *450consideration in passing upon the liability of the defendant. But when liability is established without question, as in this case, the matter of a discharge, whether by payment, release or statute of limitations, is governed by the lex fori, the law of the place where the case is tried and where such defense is to be allowed or disallowed. If a contract made in North Carolina, on which the statute of limitations is three years, is sued on in New York, where the limitation upon that class of contracts is six years, the defense is governed by the latter limitation, and vice versa, when a suit is brought in this State on a cause of action accruing in New York. In the same way, if the plea of payment or release is one which cannot be sustained in good conscience or is against the public policy of the State where the case is tried, the courts thereof will not hold it a valid defense to defeat a valid liability which the defendant has incurred elsewhere.
The release here set up is by virtue of a transaction by which the plaintiff, who has paid in $12, has received back $68, and the defendant is insisting that that is a release of a liability for $1,800 damages legally ascertained, which the plaintiff has sustained by the wrongful act of the defendant. Such a defense is not good in foro conscienlice, and in that matter the courts here axe to be governed by their own rules of equity. There has been no consideration for the release, and such being the case, the Judge properly entered judgment in favor of the plaintiff upon the verdict.
It is strenuously argued by the able and learned counsel for the plaintiff that the “Atlantic Coast Line Belief Department” is an ingeniously devised plan to cause the employees of that company, at their own expense and by means of deductions from their wages, to insure the railroad company from liability for injuries sustained in its service, notwithstanding the provisions of the Eellow-servant Act, now Be-visal, 2646. It is not necessary to go into that matter, as *451it is apparent that there was no consideration for the release here set up. But the act in question affects a most meritorious class of our citizens, engaged in hazardous cjuasi-public service. They are deeply and vitally interested that judicial construction shall in nowise impair the just protection afforded them by that section, and especially by the last paragraph thereof: “Any contract or agreement, expressed or implied, made by any employee of such company to waive the benefit of this section, shall be null and void.”