Court Opinion

ID: 9527087
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:27:15.478933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:31.918930
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Clark,
with whom The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Black, and Mr. Justice Douglas .concur, dissenting.
In Miles v. Illinois Central r. Co., 315 U. S. 698 (1942), this Court defined the circumstances under which a State must entertain in its courts an F. E. L. A. action brought by a citizen of another State. The Court said: “To deny citizens from other states, suitors under F. E. L. A., access to its courts would, if it permitted access to its own citizens, violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause.” Id. at 704. In the proceeding below the highest court of Missouri followed this view. It stated unequivocally:
“The Federal Employers’ Liability Act does not compel the courts of this state to hear cases arising under that act, but it empowers our courts to do so.
“Since Missouri does allow its citizens to maintain Federal Employers’ Liability actions in its courts, ... it follows that not to allow citizens of other states the right to file Federal Employers’ Liability suits in our state courts would violate Article 4, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States.” 359 Mo. 827 at 839, 224 S. W. 2d 105 at 110 (1949).
But the majority of this Court apparently presumes that when the Supreme Court of Missouri thus used the term “citizens” it was unmindful that the term includes all persons domiciled within a State regardless of their *7actual residence. I am unwilling to conclude that the court thought that only actual residents of Missouri are citizens of that State. Indeed it seems clear that the court used the term “citizens” in the usual sense, meaning to include Missourians regardless of where they reside. That it did is shown by its discussion of the opinion of this Court in Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 279 U. S. 377 (1929), which upheld a New York statute permitting dismissal of suits by “non-residents” against foreign corporations. As against the contention that the New York statute discriminated against citizens of other States, this Court in the Douglas case found the statute unobjectionable since New York courts in defining “residents” had included only persons actually living in New York and had interpreted “non-residents” to mean all persons residing outside the State, whether citizens of New York or of some other State. The Missouri court below observed that Missouri had no such statute and that dismissal could not be justified in view of its local policy which “permits citizens of this state to file Federal Employers’ Liability cases in its courts.” 359 Mo. at 838, 224 S. W. 2d at 110.
Our duty is to uphold the decision below if there was a valid ground to sustain it. As there was a sufficient ground, we should not vacate and remand merely because certain statements of the Missouri court may indicate that it also felt under compulsion of federal decisions applying the Liability Act. The cases out of which this proceeding arises are now in their third year in the courts without coming to trial, and remand by this Court will unnecessarily cause further delay and expense in bringing them to final adjudication. I would affirm.