Court Opinion

ID: 9827978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:59:23.056217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:53:47.442552
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In our former opinion in this case affirming the judgment of the court below, we followed the opinion of our Supreme Court in the case of Telegraph Co. v. Bailey, 108 Tex. 427, 196 S. W. 516, in which it is held that the Act of Congress pf June 18, 1910, § 7 (U. S. Comp. St. § 8563) placing telegraph companies under the jurisdiction and control of the Interstate Commerce Commission, does not depanve^ttejamrts of the several states of authority) to^eHforfce the state rules of law as to the ..measure of damages for breach of a contract for the delivery of an interstate telegraphic message. In the case cited the act of Congress was construed as not in any manner affecting the liability of a telegraph company for damages for failure to deliver or delay in delivering an interstate message as that liability was fixed and measured by the law of the state in which the contract for the transmission andr~ delivery of the message was executed. (In discussing the question the court says: v'"
“In the absence of legislation by Congress the right of a state to prescribe its own rules in respect to particular subjects of interstate commerce, which do not constitute a direct burden upon such commerce, is undoubted. Railway v. Harris, 234 U. S. 412, 34 Sup. Ct. 790, 58 L. Ed. 1377, L. R. A. 1915E, 942; Telegraph Co. v. Milling Co., 218 U. S. 406, 31 Sup. Ct. 59, 54 L. Ed. 1088, 36 L. R. A. (N. S.) 220, 21 Ann. Cas. 815. While the measure of damages recoverable for the breach of the contract for the nondelivery of the message in this case would be governed by the law of Tennessee, the place of the making of the contract, no evidence was adduced as to the law of that state upon the subject. It is therefore presumed to be similar to the law of this state. The correctness of the rule which in this state permits the recovery of damages for mental distress, and which allows such damages even in the instance of an interstate message whore the negligence occurs in this state and such damages are recoverable under the law of the state from which the message is sent, furnishes no test of this immediate question. The real test of it is: Does the enforcement of .such a rule constitute a direct burden upon interstate commerce? It cannot be said to impose any such burden. It is no more of a burden upon such commerce than is a penalty prescribed by a state for misconduct of an interstate carrier occurring within its borders, the lawfulness of .which, in the absence of legislation by Congress upon the particular subject, has in' different instances been repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. Telegraph Co. v. James, 162 U. S. 650, 16 Sup. Ct. 934, 40 L. Ed. 1105; Railway Co. v. New York, 165 U. S. 628, 17 Sup. Ct. 418, 41 L. Ed. 853; Gladson v. Minnesota, 166 U. S. 427, 17 Sup. Ct. 627, 41 L. Ed. 1064; Railroad Co. v. Hughes, 191 U. S. 477, 24 Sup. Ct. 132, 48 L. Ed. 268. * * *
*597“If this amendment was an exertion by Congress of its authority over the subject of the liability of telegraph companies for the negligent nondelivery of interstate messages, including that of their right to provide by contract -that they should he exempt from such liability, or if it clearly manifested a purpose on the part of Congress to extend its authority over those subjects, the rules of the state upon them are, of course, superseded. But we 'do not regard the amendment as open to any such construction. It is not necessary to here set-it out, hut its examination reveals that it classifies telegraph companies doing an interstate business as common carriers within the meaning of the act; requires that their charges shall be just and reasonable; prohibits every unjust and unreasonable charge; permits their classification of messages and the charging of different rates therefor ; and, further, in section 15 as amended (Comp. St. § 8583), empowers the Interstate Commerce Commission to determine, after complaint made, whether their charges, regulations, or practices are unjust, unreasonable, discriminatory, or otherwise in violation of the act, and, if it be of the opinion that they are, to prescribe those which are just, fair, and reasonable. There is no mention of the liability of such companies for negligence. That subject is not dealt with or touched upon. If it had been the purpose of Congress to legislate upon it, we think it would have done so in terms clear and unmistakable. We are not required to assume that such was the intention in the absence of its clear manifestation. The laws of a state as they may be properly directed to the subjects of interstate commerce are not to be held as inconsistent with an act of Congress unless they present an absolute conflict, or unless, at least, a purpose on the part of Congress to legislate upon the particular subject is clearly revealed.”
[6] There has been a sharp conflict in the decision of the courts of many of the states upon this question, and that conflict, so far as we were aware, not having been authoritatively settled .by the Supreme Court of the United States, we followed the decision of our state Supreme Court, of the soundness of which we had no doubt. I
/""But in their motion for rehearing appellant Vgsjrfted two recent opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States which were not published when our-former opinion in this case was delivered, and in both of which the cases from the state courts, in which the act is construed as regulating the liability of telegraph companies for breach of contract for the delivery of an interstate message, and denying to a state the authority to fix a penalty or to enforce through its courts a rule for the measure of damages for such breach of contract which is not recognized and applied by the courts of the United States, are expressly approved.
The cases referred to are Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Warren-Godwin Lumber Co., 251 U. S. 27, 40 S. Ct. 69, 64 L. Ed. -; decided December 8, 1919, and Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Boegli, 251 U. S. 315, 40 S. Ct. 167, 64 L. Ed. - decided January 12, 1920. We have been furnished with a copy of the opinion of the Chief Justice White in the Boegli Case, from which we quote:
“The telegraph company challenged the right to subject it to a penalty fixed by a law of Indiana for failure to deliver promptly in that state a telegram sent there from a point in Illinois, on the ground that the act of Congress of June 18, 1910, amending the Act to Regulate Commerce (36 -Stat. 539, 543), had deprived the state of ail power in the premises. The court, conceding that if the act of Congress dealt with the subject the state statute would be inoperative, imposed the penalty on the ground that the act of 1910 did not extend to that field. The correctness of this conclusion is the one controversy with which the arguments are concerned.
“The proposition that the act of 1910 must be narrowly construed so as to preserve the reserved power of the state over the subject in hand, although it.is admitted that that power is in its nature federal and may be exercised by the state only because of nonaetion by Congress, is obviously too conflicting and unsound to require further notice. We therefore consider the statute in the light of its text, and, -if there be ambiguity, of its context, in order to give effect to the intent of Congress as manifested >in its enactment.
/“As the result of doing so, we are of opinion fthat the provisions of the statute bringing tele^graph companies under the Act to Regulate Commerce, as well as placing them under the administrative control of the Interstate Commerce Commission, so clearly establish the purpose of Congress to subject such companies to a uniform national rule as to cause it to be certain that there was no room thereafter for the exercise by the several states of power to regulate, by penalizing the negligent failure to deliver promptly, an interstate telegram, and that the court below erred therefore in imposing the penalty fixed by the state statute.
“We do not pursue the subject further, since the effect of the act of 1910 in taking possession of the field was recently determined in exact accordance with the conclusion we have just stated. Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Warren-Godwin Lumber 251 U. S. 27, 40 Sup. Ct. 69, 64 L Ed. —-. That case, indeed, was concerned only wiihJJie operation, after the passage of the act of 1910, of a state statute rendering illegal a clause of a contract for sending an interstate telegram limiting the amount of recovery under the conditions stated in case of an unrepeated message; hut the ruling that the effect of the act of 1910 was to exclude the possibility thereafter of applying the state law was rested, not alone upon the special provisions of the act of 1910 relating to unrepeated messages, but upon the necessary effect of the general provisions of that act, bringing telegraph companies under the control of the Interstate Commerce Act. The contention as to the continuance of state power here made is therefore adversely foreclosed. Indeed, in the previous case the principal authorities here relied upon to sustain the continued right to exert state power after the passage of the act of 1910 were disapproved, and various decisions of state courts of last *598resort to the contrary, one or more dealing with the subject now in hand, were approvingly cited.”
While the question of the proper rule for the measure of damages in cases of breach of contract for the delivery of an interstate message was not involved in either of the cases cited,- many of the opinions which these cases refer to and expressly approve involved only that question. This is true of the following cases: Durre v. Western Union Tel. Co., 165 Wis. 190, 161 N. W. 755; Norris v. Western Union Tel. Co., 174 N. C. 92, 93 S. E. 465; Bateman v. Western Union Tel. Co., 174 N. C. 97, 93 S. E. 467, L. R. A. 1918A, 803. The same question was involved, together with other questions, in Western Union Tel. Co. v. Lee, 174 Ky. 210, 192 S. W. 70, Ann. Cas. 1918C, 1026, and Western Union Tel. Co. v. Hawkins, 14 Ala. App. 295, 70 South. 12.
,As typical of the reasoning and conclusions in the cases cited with approval in the foregoing opinions, we may quote briefly from Western Union Tel. Co. v. Schade, 137 Tenn. 214, 192 S. W. 924:
“It is not to be doubted that, since the Congress by the passage of the amendatory act above referred to has entered the field and assumed the regulation of interstate telegraphic communication, the liability of the common carrier for mental suffering is also controlled by the federal law (Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U. S. 491, 33 Sup. Ct. 148, 57 L. Ed. 314, 44 L. R. A. [N. S.] 257; Western Union Tel. Co. v. Brown, 234 U. S. 542, 34 Sup. Ct. 955, 58 L. Ed. [1457]); which law supersedes state regulation and decisions ad hoc (Western Union Tel. Co. v. Compton, 114 Ark. 193, 169 S. W. 846; Western Union Tel. Co. v. Smith [Tex. Civ. App.] 188 S. W. 702, and the telegraph cases cited above).
“The rights and liabilities of the parties depend, therefore, upon the terms of the contract entered into, and the common-law principles accepted and enforced by the federal courts. One of these principles is that damages for mental anguish only, claimed to be due to the carrier’s default, are not recoverable.”
[7] Under these decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States we are constrained to grant appellant’s motion for a rehearing. The only damage claimed to have been sustained by appellee is the mental anguish suffered by Mrs. Kilgore as a result of her inability to attend her father’s funeral which was caused by the failure to deliver the telegram sent from Houston, Tex., to her brother at Mansfield, Ark., advising him that she would attend the funeral, and, such damages not being recoverable for a breach of a contract for the delivery of an interstate telegraphic message, the judgment of the trial court is reversed, and judgment here rendered for appellant.