Court Opinion

ID: 9640857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:17:10.20103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:33.382583
License: Public Domain

*870RUDKIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). As I understand the majority opinion, a railroad employee who happens to sleep and take his'meals in a section house, bunk house, or car furnished by the railway company on its right of way is continuously engaged in interstate commerce, even during the hours devoted to sleep. If this be true, a large number of railway employees who make their homes, temporarily or permanently, in quarters furnished by railway companies on their rights of way, are continuously employed in interstate commerce, even though their time of actual employment does not exceed eight or ten hours per day. I do not think that the statute admits of this broad construction, and, if it does, it is of doubtful validity, because employees of railroads, employed in interstate commerce, are under the protection of the state, except while actively engaged in or' about the discharge of their duties. I agree with the majority opinion that it was the duty of the trainmen in charge of the train whieh caused the injury to give timely notice of its approach to the place of the accident, and that failure to give such notice would constitute negligence, but I see no room for the application of the last clear chance doetrine. That doctrine assumes that the trainmen were free from negligence until they discovered the deceased in a place of actual peril, and, when that discovery was made in this ease, no human power could prevent the accident in so far as the trainmen were concerned. The verdiet was very small in comparison with the loss sustained by the widow, but, small as it is, I regret to say that in my opinion the judgment cannot stand.