Court Opinion

ID: 9418241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:15:48.746274+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:58.589891
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Pitney,
dissenting.
It seems to me that the rulings of the state court, held to be erroneous, are not within the scope of our review under' the act (Rev. Stat., § 709; Jud. Code, § 237) that alone confers jurisdiction upon this court to review the judgment of a state court.
The action was based upon the Hours of Service Act of March 4, 1907 (34 Stat. 1415, 1416, c. 2939, §2), and upon the Employers’ Liability Act of April 22, 1908 (35 Stat. 65, c. 149), and the verdict and judgment rest upon the theory that-plaintiff’s intestate, Etwal McWhirter, a flagman or brakeman upon one of defendant’s interstate trains, had been kept continuously at work for more than sixteen consecutive hours, in violation of the former act, and that his death was directly due to the negligence of the locomotive engineer upon the same train, either alone or in conjunction with McWhirter’s excessive fatigue due' to his having been worked overtime. The negligence of the engineer was of course attributable to the defendant under the act of 1908, and under that act the negligence of the deceased, if shown, would not bar the action.
As I read the record' the trial judge instructed the jury to the effect that the violation of the Hours -of Service Act created no liability unless there was a causal relation *284between' the" working overtime of the deceased and the catastrophe that resulted in his death. And so, I think, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky interpreted the instructions (145 Kentucky, 427, 441; Instructions 4 and 5).
However, let it be conceded, for present purposes, that the trial court erroneously instructed the jury that the effect of the violation of the Hours of Service Act was to create an unconditional liability for an accident happening after the expiration of the 16-hour limit, and to render the carrier an insurer of the safety of the employe while working, beyond the statutory time. And let it be further conceded that the trial court held, and erred in holding, that there was enough in the evidence to warrant a finding that the locomotive engineer was- negligent, so as to' make the carrier liable under the Employers’ Liability Act; or held; erroneously, that there was enough to show a causal relation between the working overtime of McWhirter and the disaster, so as to create a liability under the Hours of Service Act.
"It still does not seem to me that the state courts, in overruling defendant’s objections to the instructions referred to, or in denying the motion (and sustaining such denial) for direction of a verdict in defendant’s favor, decided against any “title,, right, privilege, or immunity specially set up or claimed” by the defendant-under the Constitution or laws of the United States, within, the meaning of § 709, Revised Statutes; Judicial Codej § 237. It was the plaintiff‘in the trial court (now defendant in error) who alone claimed under the laws of the United .States. The attitude of'the defendant was that of merely denying the validity of her claims. And the rulings of the state court (as • is conceded, for argument’s sake) erroneously imposed .upon the defendant a greater responsibility than those laws warranted; in other words, gave top great force to the Federal" statutes.. The questions thus raised were undoubtedly Féderal questions in *285the general sense; that is to say, they arose under the laws of the United States. And I concede that the judgment cannot be sustained upon any independent non-Federal ground. But according to all previous decisions, so far as I am aware, the mere existence of a Federal question in the record is- not sufficient to give to this court jurisdiction to review the judgment of a state court; it is necessary that the Federal question shall have been decided in a particular way.
There is a clear distinction between the existence of a Federal question such as would give original jurisdiction to a Federal court because “arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States,” etc. (Judicial Code, § 24), or such as would give a right of appeal to this court from those courts (§§ 238, 241), and the denial by a state court of a Federal right or immunity, under such circumstances as to give jurisdiction to this court to review the state court’s decision.
Section 237, Judicial Code, formerly § 709, Rev. Stat., authorizes a review by this court of the final judgment of the court of last resort of a State only “where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty, or statute of, or an -authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is' against their validity; or where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, any State, on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of-the United States, and the decision is in favor of their validity; or where any title, right, privilege, or immunity is claimed under the Constitution, or any treaty or statute of, or commission held or authority exercised, under, the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege, or immunity especially set up or claimed by either party, under such Constitution, treaty, statute, commission, or authority.”
Unless the emphatic words — “against their validity” — • *286“in favor of their authority” — “against the title . . . or immunity especially set up ”, etc; — are to be eliminated from the section, it must be construed as giving, not .a mutual or reciprocal right of review of Federal questions decided in the state courts, but an unilateral right of review, dependent upon the way in which the question was decided in the state court.
The distinction has been recognized by this court in cases without number. See Whitten v. Tomlinson, 160 U. S. 231, 238; Penn Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Austin, 168 U. S. 685, 695; Holder v. Aultman, 169 U. S. 81, 88; Field v. Barber Asphalt Co., 194 U. S. 618, 620..
The terms of § 237, Judicial Code, are not new.. Ex.cept for using the word “especially” instead of “specially” the jurisdictional clause is identical with the corresponding clause in § 709, Rev. Stat., under which it has been uniformly held that this court has no general power to review or correct the decisions of the state courts, and. is' authorized only to protect against alleged violations in state court decisions of rights.arising under the Federal authority; that’ it was not the purpose of Congress to authorize a review by this court whenever a Federal question is decided, in a litigation in a state court, but was to prevent the state jurisdictions from impairing or frittering away the authority of the Federal Government by failing to give full force to the statutes, etc;, established by that Government; and that therefore the-writ of error will lie only when the decision is adverse to the Federal right asserted in the state court by the plaintiff in error; and that a decision in the state jurisdiction upon a Federal question, however erroneous the decision may be, is not to be corrected in this court if the decision be in favor of the right or immunity 'that is set up under the Federal authority. Montgomery v. Hernandez (1827), 12 Wheat. 129, 132; Hale v. Gaines (1859), 22 How. 144, 160; Murdock v. City of Memphis (1874), 20 Wall. 590, 626; Mis*287souri v. Andriano, 138 U. S. 496, 499; Jersey City & Bergen R. Co. v. Morgan, 160 U. S. 288, 292; DeLamar’s Nevada G. M. Co. v. Nesbitt, 177 U. S. 523, 528.
In all these cases the word “immunity,” as used in § 709, Rev. Stat., like the associated words “title, right, privilege,” has been given its normal affirmative force; the clause meaning not that the plaintiff in error may have merely denied a Federal right asserted against him by his adversary, but that he must have claimed exemption from a liability or obligation asserted against him on grounds of state or of Federal law, by specially setting up an immunity because of some statute, or treaty, or constitutional provision of the United States.
The more recent decisions that are sometimes supposed to have given a different construction to § 709, do not, upon critical examination, bear out this view. Nutt v. Knut, 200 U. S. 12, 19, and cases cited; Texas Pacific Ry. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 434, etc.; Kansas City Southern Ry. v. Albers Commission Co., 223 U. S. 573, 591; Creswill v. Knights of Pythias, 225 U. S. 246; Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Duvall, 225 U. S. 477. An apparent exception is St. Louis, Iron Mountain & S. Ry. v. Taylor, 210 U. S. 281, 291, etc. But in that case the plaintiff in error did at least assert a special construction of the Federal act upon which.its adversary’s suit was based, and upon that special construction claimed an exemption from liability.
I am unable to find in § 709, or in-previous decisions,of this court, any authority for a review by this court of a decision by a state court sustaining a defendant’s liability in an action founded upon a Federal law, although such decision be excepted to; or for reviewing a state court decision that, instead of impairing or limiting the effect of an act of Congress, is alleged to enlarge its scope and effect and the consequent responsibility of a defendant thereunder.