Court Opinion

ID: 9642398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:56:30.340862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:46.769320
License: Public Domain

BINGHAM, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
For a period of over 60 years (since 1874), the federal courts have recognized and enforced a rule of law which imposes upon the owner or person in control of land a duty to use due care to avoid injury to children of immature years who may be allured or tempted to enter upon the land by reasoxx of a structure or condition there existing, which he had constructed or suffered to exist, and which he knows or has reason to anticipate will attract and injure children, provided the attractive appliance or condition can be seen by children from where they have a lawful right to be, or *752the owner or person in control knows that children are in the habit of going to the place. This doctrine was first announced by the Supreme Court in Sioux City & P. R. Co. v. Stout (1874) 17 Wall. 657, 21 L.Ed. 745; and it is specifically stated in Best v. District of Columbia, 291 U.S. 411, 54 S. Ct. 487, 78 L.Ed. 882, decided March 5, 1934, that the doctrine of that case has never been overruled by the Supreme Court. It is therefore certain that the principle announcement in the Stout Case is still the law of the federal courts.
It is true, as stated in the majority opinion, that the Britt Case, 258 U.S. 268, 42 S.Ct. 299, 66 L.Ed. 615, 36 A.L.R. 28, the Hilt Case, 247 U.S. 97, 38 S.Ct. 435, 62 L.Ed. 1003, and the Fruchter Case, 260 U.S. 141, 43 S.Ct. 38, 67 L.Ed. 173, were decided in favor of the defendants. But that does not militate against the rule or its existence, for those cases were held not to come within the rule. In the Britt Case it was so held (1) because it was doubtful whether the water or pool (the attractive condition or thing) could be seen from where the children lawfully were, and (2) because it did not appear that children were in the habit of going to the place. The Hilt Case did not come within the rule for the reason that a statute of New Jersey, the state where the action arose, expressly provided that any person walking or playing on a railroad right of way, except at a crossing, could not recover. And in the Fruchter Case, the rule was held not to apply because there was not sufficient evidence from which the jury could properly conclude that the railroad company had -either directly or by implication invited or licensed the boy to climb to a point from which -he could touch a bare electric wire 30 feet above the street, located on a cross-arm of a lattice tower some six or more feet above the topmost girder of a municipal bridge; all of which is clearly pointed out in the Best Case.
It is also stated in the majority opinion that the Stout Case “arose in Nebraska, about six years after that State was admitted into the Union, and at a time when there was no local law on the point in that case.” There is nothing in the opinion in the Stout Case showing there was no local law on the point.in that state in 1874, and nothing has been called to our attention showing that such was or was not the fact.
The McDonald Case, 152 U.S. 262, 14 S.Ct. 619, 38 L.Ed. 434, is sought to be distinguished on the ground that it arose in Colorado, and the “opinion does not refer to the local law.” In the opinion.in that case the doctrine of the Stout Case is expressly affirmed, and the opinion in both the McDonald and Stout Cases do not mention the “local law”; the decisions of the courts of the state where the actions arose. From the fact that the opinions in the Stout and McDonald Cases do not refer to the local law as promulgated by its courts it'is not to be inferred that the Supreme Court would have followed the decisions of the courts of Colorado or Nebraska had there been any on the subject rather than it would have declared and enforced its own rule.
The opinion of Judge Putnam in the McCabe Case (C.C.) 124 F. 283, affirmed (C.C.A.) 132 F. 1006, and here relied upon in the majority opinion, in so far as it supports the conclusion there reached upon the decisions of the Massachusetts courts (Daniels v. New York & New England R. Co., 154 Mass. 349, 28 N.E. 283, 13 L.R.A. 248, 26 Am.St.Rep. 253) repudiating the Stout Case, does not meet my approval. The conclusion in that case, however, may be sustained on the ground that the action was based upon a statute of Massachusetts, under which statute, as construed by the Massachusetts court in Grant v. City of Fitchburg, 160 Mass. 16, 35 N.E. 84, 39 Am.St.Rep. 449, the plaintiff could not recover.
I am further of the opinion that the determination of the question whether an owner or one in control of land owes a duty to immature children under the circumstances announced in the Stout Case is one of general law and is to be enforced in the federal courts, even though the decisions of the courts of the state in which the action arose repudiate that principle and hold to the contrary, provided there is no statute of the state restricting such liability (as was the situation in the Britt Case), or no well-defined and established custom to the contrary. There is no such statute or local custom here shown to exist in Massachusetts, the state in which the action arose.
In Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Baugh, 149 U.S. 368, 13 S.Ct. 914, 37 L.Ed. 772, it was held that a matter of generál law should be settled by the independent judgment of the federal courts rather than through adherence to the decisions of a state court; and it also was held that the question, whether an engineer and fireman were fellow servants of the railway company or not, was a question of general law, and *753numerous cases are cited in the opinion bearing upon the question of what is a question of general law. After recounting the various decisions, the court, 149 U.S. 368, on page 378, 13 S.Ct. 914, 918, 37 L.Ed. 772, said:
“But, passing beyond the matter of authorities, the question is essentially one of general law. It does not depend upon any statute; it does not spring from any local usage or custom; there is in it no rule of property, but it rests upon those considerations of right and justice which have been gathered into the great body of the rules and principles known as the ‘common law.’ There is no question as to the power of the states to legislate and change the rules of the common law in this respect as in others; but in the absence of such legislation the question is one determinable only by the general principles of that law. Further than that, it is a question in which the nation as a whole is interested. It enters into the commerce of the country.”
In Boyce v. Tabb, 18 Wall. 546, 548, 21 L.Ed. 757, the court, in considering the contention that section 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 obliged the Supreme Court to follow' the rule of decision in a state court, said:
“This is an erroneous view of the obligation imposed by that section on this court, as our decisions abundantly show. The provisions of that section do not apply, nor was it intended they should apply, to questions of a general nature not based on a local statute or usage, nor on any rule of law affecting titles to land, nor on any principle which had become a settled rule of property. The decisions of the State courts, on all questions not thus affected, are not conclusive authority, although they are entitled to, and will receive from us, attention and respect.”
And in Presidio County v. Noel-Young Bond & Stock Co., 212 U.S. 58, 73, 29 S.Ct. 237, 242, 53 L.Ed. 402, the court said:
“Since the decision in Swift v. Tyson, 16 Pet. 1, 19, 10 L.Ed. 865, 871, it has been the accepted doctrine of this court that, in respect of the doctrines of commercial law and general jurispmdence, the courts of the United States will exercise their own independent judgment, and, in respect to such doctrines, will not be controlled by decisions based upon local statutes or local usage, although, if the question is balanced with doubt, the courts of the United States, for the sake of harmony, ‘will lean to an agreement of views with the state courts.’ ” (Italics supplied.)
This case points out that where a court of the United States has under consideration the determination of a question of “commercial law,” or “general jurisprudence,” it will exercise its own independent judgment, and, while in doing so it would be controlled by a local statute, it would not be controlled by the decisions of local courts construing that statute, if it regarded such construction clearly wrong. But if the question of construction is “balanced with doubt, the courts of the United States, for the sake of harmony, will lean to an agreement with the state courts.”
In Salem Trust Co. v. Finance Co., 264 U.S. 182, 44 S.Ct. 266, 68 L.Ed. 628, 31 A.L.R. 867, one of the questions under consideration was whether, in the absence of a local statute or usage, the second assignee of an ordinary chose in action (an account receivable), by first giving notice to the debtor, acquired a right prior and not subordinated to the right of the earlier assignee, and it was held that this was a question of general law in deciding which' a federal court was not bound by the decisions of the highest courts of a state.
I also call attention to the opinion in Richardson v. Shaw, 209 U.S. 365, 28 S.Ct. 512, 52 L.Ed. 835, 14 Ann.Cas. 981. There the question was whether the relation between customer and broker was that of debtor and creditor, respectively, or that of pledgor and pledgee. It was well established, according to the decisions of the Massachusetts courts, that the relationship was that of debtor and creditor, and counsel for the petitioner took the position that the transaction, having taken place in Massachusetts, was governed by the lex loci. See 209 U.S. 365, at page 366, 28 S.Ct. 512, 52 L.Ed. 835, 14 Ann.Cas. 981. Counsel for the respondent, however, took the position that, “Although the transaction under consideration occurred in Massachusetts, the questions involved are to be determined not by the local law of Massachusetts, but on principles of general jurisprudence, there being no question as to the validity of the contracts between the bankrupt [the broker] and Shaw & Company [the customer] under the local law.” See 209 U.S. 365, at page 368, 28 S.Ct. 512, 515, 52 L.Ed. 835, 14 Ann.Cas. 981. And the Supreme Court, in its decision of the qase, exercised its independent judgment, and after pointing out what *754the settled rule was in the courts of New York “where such transactions are the most numerous,” the rule in Connecticut, and the views generally accepted as settled law by the text writers on the subject, said:
“The rule thus established by the courts of the state [New York] where such transactions are the most numerous, and which has long been adopted and generally followed as a settled rule of law, should not be lightly disturbed, and an examination of the cases and the principles upon which they rest leads us to the conclusion that in no just sense can the broker be held to be the owner of the shares of stock which he purchases and carries for his customer. While we recognize that the courts of Massachusetts have reached a different conclusion, and hold that the broker is the owner, carrying the shares upon a conditional contract of sale, and, while entertaining the greatest respect for the supreme judicial court of that state, we cannot accept its conclusion as to the relation of broker and customer under the circumstances developed in this case. We say this, recognizing' the difficulties which can be pointed out in the application of either rule.”
Then again, 209 U.S. 365, on page 380, 28 S.Ct. 512, 517, 52 L.Ed. 835, 14 Ann.Cas. 981:
“ ‘The fundamental difficulty grows out of the necessary attempt in some way to transform the customer, who enjoys all the incidents and assumes all the risks of ownership, into a person who in fact has no right, title, or interest, and to create out of the broker, who enjoys none of the incidents of ownership, and assumes not a particle of its responsibility, a person clothed with a full title and an absolute ownership.’
“We reach the conclusion, therefore, that, although the broker may not be strictly a pledgee, as understood at commpn law, he is essentially a pledgee, and not the owner of the stock, and turning it over upon demand to the customer does not create the relation of a preferred creditor, within the meaning of the bankrupt law.”
' In the Baugh Case, supra, it was held that the question whether an engineer was the superior of the fireman for whose negligence the railway company was responsible, or only a fellow servant, was a question of general law. If the fact that there the defendant was an interstate common carrier added anything to the generality of the legal question, it may be said that the defendant here is likewise an interstate common carrier and the point raised in the Stout Case, whether a legal duty is imposed upon an owner or occupant of land on which he maintains a structure attractive to immature children, is equally a question of general law; there being no local statute regulating the matter, and there can be no distinction as to the nature of the questions.
I am therefore of the opinion that this court is required to follow the rule announced by the Supreme Court, notwithstanding the decisions of the courts of Massachusetts, the state in which action arose, repudiate that rule.