Court Opinion

ID: 9419592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:50:21.243731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:19.209538
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Black,
dissenting.
Far-reaching implications of the Court’s action in both these cases impel me to state the reasons for my disagreement.
*129In November, 1936, Herb (the petitioner in No. 24) lost a leg and suffered other severe injuries. He commenced an action against the railroad in an Illinois City Court, was awarded a verdict, the trial judge entered judgment for the railroad notwithstanding the verdict, and an Illinois intermediate appellate court reversed and directed that judgment be entered for Herb. 306 Ill. App. 583, 29 N. E. 2d 543. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the Appellate Court’s judgment insofar as it had directed that a judgment be entered for Herb, and remanded the case to the City Court for the trial judge to pass upon a motion for new trial should one be made. 377 Ill. 405, 36 N. E. 2d 555. Although five years had already elapsed since Herb’s injuries, his efforts to secure a judicial determination of his rights under federal law had just begun.
Apparently, as the lengthy history of Herb’s case shows, it had long been assumed by the courts as well as by the legal profession, that Illinois City Courts had jurisdiction to try railroad employees’ cases arising under federal law. But after remand of his case to the City Court, the state Supreme Court handed down opinions in two other cases holding that City Courts did not have jurisdiction to hear and determine actions for injuries which occurred outside their territorial limits.1 In view of this new obstacle to his action, the petitioner then moved for a change of venue to the Circuit Court, under an Illinois statute authorizing transfer from a “wrong court or county” to a “proper court or county.” Ch. 146, Ill. Rev. Stat. 1941, Par. 36. The motion was granted, and in the Circuit Court the railroad moved to dismiss the cause on the ground that (1) all of the orders of the City Court, including the change of venue, were invalid; (2) the statute authorizing transfer was unconstitutional; (3) the suit had not been “commenced” within two years after the date *130of the injury as required by § 6 of the Federal Employers Liability Act.
The motion to dismiss was sustained and Herb appealed. The Circuit Court Judge’s certification to the Illinois Supreme Court recited that the judgment involved construction of the Illinois and United States Constitutions, the validity of an Illinois statute, and the validity and construction of § 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
The court below in the very first sentence after reciting the facts, stated that “the material point for consideration” was whether the requirements of § 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act had been met. Throughout its entire opinion, the Court construed § 6 and the City Court’s jurisdiction as related to its construction of that section, in order to determine whether or not its requirements had been met. Then, having decided that the action was not “commenced” within the federal statutory period, it summarily disposed of the state questions raised with this one sentence: “This determination makes it unnecessary to pass upon either the [Illinois] constitutional question involved or the validity of the [Illinois] change-of-venue statute.”
It is true that the court below held that “proceedings in the City Court were of no effect.” In so holding, it did not decide that this fact alone authorized dismissal of the cases from the Circuit Court, which admittedly had jurisdiction to try cases arising under the federal Act. Consequently, it cannot be said that this holding provides an independent state ground for the Circuit Court’s dismissal. The only reason why the Circuit Court could dismiss under the State Court’s view was because § 6 of the federal Act required a suit to be “commenced” in two years. This made it necessary for the court to interpret the meaning and scope of “commenced.” It construed the word as meaning not only that a suit should be filed *131within two years of an injury, but that such suit must be filed in a court having jurisdiction to hear and determine the cause. Having thus by construction superimposed this condition on the federal Act, it proceeded to determine whether the City Court had such power. It held that the City Court did not have such power (a state question). Then applying its construction of the federal statute, it decided that the action had not been “commenced” within two years from the date of the injuries (a federal question). All of this shows a determination of federal questions which we should decide.
But this Court says that other language in the state court’s opinion indicates that its judgment might really have been rested on a state procedural ground, adequate to support the dismissals. So now, more than eight years after Herb was injured, both cases are to be held here to give counsel an opportunity to ask the state Supreme Court if it “intended to rest the judgments herein on an adequate and independent state ground or whether decision of the federal question was necessary to the judgment rendered.” I would not thus lightly abdicate our ultimate responsibility to protect federally created rights. To “admit that the authority to review the action of a state court where it has decided a federal question can be rendered unavailing by a suggestion ‘that the court below may have rested its judgment’ on a non-federal ground, would simply amount to depriving this Court of all power to review federal questions if only a party chose to make such a suggestion.” St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. McWhirter, 229 U. S. 265, 275, 276.
Furthermore, even a final determination that there was an adequate state procedural ground for dismissal of these particular suits would not end the controversies, although it might protract litigation for five more years. This is true, because it is beyond belief that dismissals on these procedural grounds would bar new actions based on the *132injuries. And the federal question so clearly presented here and now, could hardly be escaped in new actions. That question is, “Are these suits barred by Section 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act?” This question presents a twofold problem: (1) Does § 6 have any application to these actions; (2) If so, should the word “commenced” be construed so as to make the beginning of the suit in the City Court such a commencement?
As to (1), it is to be noted that both complainants claim damages for violation of the Federal Safety Appliance Act. 27 Stat. 531 et seg.; 45 U. S. C. § 1 et seg. Violation of the Safety Appliance Act, even without the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, gives rise to a cause of action on the part of an employee injured as the proximate result of that violation. Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Layton, 243 U. S. 617, 620; Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U. S. 33, 39. That Act contains no statute of limitations. No authority has been cited to support the proposition that the condition of liability imposed by § 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act applies to actions for damages for violation of the Safety Appliance Act. The rule of this Court has been to give the Safety Appliance Act, under which these claims were filed, a liberal construction, and one which will promote, not defeat, its purpose. Swinson v. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co., 294 U. S. 529, 531.
Assuming that petitioners here are to be required to file new suits, and that the two year limitation of § 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act applies to injuries resulting from violation of the Safety Appliance Act, it still must be determined whether filing these suits in the City Courts “commenced” actions within the meaning of that word as used in § 6.
Certainly the railroads had notice’ of the suits. They evidently thought they had been “commenced” when they contested them in all the courts of Illinois. The lawyers for all the litigants undoubtedly felt sure that they were *133trying law suits in proper forums. Neither the Illinois Court of Appeals nor the State Supreme Court which remanded Herb’s case to the City Court had any doubt at that time that suits had been “commenced.”
The plainest principles of justice demand that these employees be afforded a trial. No reason that can be conceived for erecting a statutory bar of two years justifies an inference that Congress intended that employees who made bona fide efforts to prosecute their claims in a court should be barred because of unanticipated decisions as to jurisdiction. The words of the statute justify the construction that these actions were “commenced” when they were filed in the City Courts. Any other construction results in a frustration of the broad objectives of the Act.
Finally, I can find no warrant whatever for saying that the state Supreme Court may have sustained dismissal on the ground that no suits at all were “pending” in the state Circuit Court. That court had jurisdiction to try them. The complaints were there. True, they might have been brought there by a City Court Clerk, although so far as the record shows, petitioner’s attorneys may have taken them to the Circuit Court. But the state Supreme Court’s opinions do not indicate that Illinois law requires that a complaint be physically filed by the hands of no one except an injured person. I shall not believe the state court would make such a holding until it does so.
For special reasons, in addition to those above stated, I think that this Court’s action in requiring Belcher (petitioner in No. 25) to obtain some kind of certificate of “intention” from the Illinois Supreme Court is without any conceivable justification. The argument of parties before us and the Court’s opinion have treated the Belcher case as though the Supreme Court of Illinois had sustained its dismissal and the Herb dismissal, in No. 24, on identical grounds. This treatment of the two cases is not justified unless the State Court’s opinion in Belcher’s case is given *134a strained interpretation. The Belcher opinion did cite the Herb opinion as presenting “parallel facts” to those of the Belcher case. But the “parallel facts” in the two eases upon which the Belcher dismissal was premised, were carefully limited by the Belcher opinion’s statement of the issue to this effect:
“Defendant, appearing specially, made a motion to quash the summons issued by the city court and to dismiss the cause for the reason, among others, that the cause having been ordered transferred to the circuit court on July 17, 1942, more than two years after the date plaintiff suffered his injuries, namely, February 15, 1939, he could neither institute nor maintain his action in the circuit court since it had not been commenced within two years from the day the cause of action accrued, conformably to section 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.” Belcher v. L. & N. R. Co., 384 Ill. 281, 282.
After stating the issue in this limited fashion, the Belcher opinion then went on to say:
“Upon parallel facts, Herb v. Pitcairn, . . . decided this day, holds that an action is not commenced within two years of the date of injury in a court of competent jurisdiction, as prescribed by section 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, by transferring the cause from a city court having no jurisdiction of the subject matter at a date when the action, if instituted originally on such date in the circuit court, could not be maintained because not commenced within the statutory time. Our disposition of the identical issue in Herb v. Pitcairn is decisive here.” Belcher v. L. & N. R. Co., supra, 282-283.
It thus appears that the Belcher opinion sustaining dismissal rested squarely and exclusively on the state court’s conclusion that the cause of action was barred by § 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. Notwithstanding this, the Court now, six years after Belcher’s injuries, delays a final decision on the applicability of the federal Act, *135to await a statement from the state court as to whether it would have decided it on a hypothetical state ground had that ground been considered by it in the first instance.
Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Murpht join in this dissent.

 Werner v. Illinois Central R. Co., 379 Ill. 559, 42 N. E. 2d 82; Mitchell v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 379 Ill. 522, 42 N. E. 2d 86.