Court Opinion

ID: 9884274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:50:49.30791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:37.185471
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Keingbiee, dissenting: I cannot accept the conclusion of the majority that section 2 of our Injuries Act contravenes article VI of the United States constitution. The relevant provision of that article is the supremacy clause, which says that “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1955, p. 4.) The present decision is thought to be required by the rule that “When a state refuses to hear pleas based on federally created rights while it takes cognizance of those created by state law, there may be invalid discrimination because by the Supremacy Clause federal laws are made laws of the state.” United States v. Burnison, 339 U.S. 87, 94, 94 L. ed. 675, 682. The court relies on three United States Supreme Court decisions. In Hughes v. Fetter, 341 U.S. 609, 95 L. ed 1212, and First National Bank of Chicago v. United Air Lines, 342 U.S. 396, 96 L. ed. 441, the local action was based on the wrongful death statute of another State, and the issue was whether the full-faith-and-credit clause of article IV requires recognition of a foreign cause of action when the law of the forum, on the particular facts, is in conflict with that of the foreign State. In the remaining case, McKnett v. St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Co. 292 U.S. 230, 78 L. ed. 1227, an action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act was brought in Alabama to recover damages for an injury inflicted in Tennessee by a foreign railroad. Under former Alabama law the courts had no jurisdiction of a suit against a foreign corporation unless the cause of action arose within the State. An Alabama statute of 1907 had restored jurisdiction as to causes of action arising under the law of another State, but left the proscription in effect as to causes of action arising under Federal law. It was held that the constitution prohibits State courts of general jurisdiction from declining jurisdiction solely because the suit is brought under a Federal law. The discrimination, it will be observed, occurred through the election by the State of Alabama to expressly permit an action of the same class to be maintained where it arose under the laws of another State. The decision was not that both must be recognized but that if one is voluntarily permitted the other must be. The question presented to this court is whether the holding in Hughes v. Fetter, compelling Illinois to recognize a cause of action arising under the laws of another State, is equivalent to voluntary choice to do so. Is this State basing a denial of jurisdiction upon the source of law sought to be enforced ? Has Illinois refused to provide a forum solely because the suit is brought under a federal law? Has Illinois “discriminated” against rights arising under federal laws ? I think not. We are foreclosed by Hughes v. Fetter from questioning whether the full-faith-and-credit clause was meant to give to a mere cause of action the dignity accorded to judgments and other acts of a public nature. As an original proposition it would seem that the law of a State may be given full faith and credit without going so far as to say that every private cause of action thereunder must be enforced in every other State. The constitutional provision establishes a rule of evidence rather than of jurisdiction; and even where a cause of action has been reduced to judgment in the foreign State the clause has been held not to be violated by a statute precluding the maintenance of an action between nonresidents where the cause of action arose outside the State. (Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co. 191 U.S. 373, 48 L. ed. 225.) The provisions of the full-faith-and-credit clause, it has been said, do not affect the jurisdiction of the court in which a foreign judgment is offered in evidence. (Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co. of New Orleans, 127 U.S. 265, 32 L. ed. 239, 244.) At least in the absence of implications created by Hughes v. Fetter, there are limits to the extent to which the policy of one State may be subordinated to the policy of another. (See Milwaukee County v. White Co. 296 U.S. 268, 273, 80 L. ed. 220, 225-226.) The extent to which the State of the forum shall apply in its own courts a rule of law of another State is itself a question of local law of the forum (see Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hunt, 320 U.S. 430, 445, 88 L. ed. 149, 158); and the distinction, as to full faith and credit, between foreign judgments and common or statutory-law has long been recognized. 320 U.S. at 436, 88 L. ed. at 154. But we are not obliged here to determine how far the full-faith-and-credit clause reaches. The source of Illinois’s duty to enforce Federal rights is found, not in the full-faith-and-credit clause, but in the inherent characteristics of the Federal system. (Mondou v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co. 223 U.S. 1, 57-58, 56 L. ed. 327, 349.) The grant of power to Congress by the constitution is paramount over all legislative powers reserved to the States, and where concurrent power exists that of the Federal government must prevail. But before a State law can be invalidated on such grounds it must appear (1) that the power in question is possessed by Congress and (2) that it has been exercised. Assuming a Federal power to prescribe jurisdictional requirements for Illinois courts as to the present subject matter (but cf. Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U.S. 211, 60 L. ed. 961; Bowman v. Lewis, 101 U.S. 22, 25 L. ed. 989, 993,) I cannot see where Congress has purported to exert it. If the Federal Employers’ Liability Act had provided that all actions to enforce rights thereunder must be entertained in State courts, regardless of the place where the wrong occurred, then there would be a conflict between the two statutes; and if such a Federal requirement were valid, the supremacy clause would require the result reached by the court. But the Federal statute does not so provide. (Accord, Douglas v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co. 279 U.S. 377, 387-388, 76 L. ed 747, 752.) It deals not with procedural questions but with substantive rights. There is no conflict on the jurisdictional question because Congress has not acted in the field. The opinion of the court does not even attempt to point out how such a command can be inferred from the language of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, nor can I find anything therein to indicate one. The rule is well established that where there exists a concurrent power of legislation in the States and in Congress, State power remains until the field is occupied by an exercise of the Federal power. It is unaffected by the mere existence of potential Federal action. (Reagen v. Mercantile Trust Co. 154 U.S. 413, 38 L. ed. 1028.) The constitutional requirement is that “any legislation of a state, although in pursuance of an acknowledged power reserved to it, which conflicts with the actual exercise of the power of Congress over the subject of commerce, must give way before the supremacy of the national authority.” (Emphasis supplied.) (Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465, 473, 31 L. ed. 508, 510.) The proviso in the case at bar offends neither the full-faith-and-credit clause nor the supremacy clause. Section 2 of our Injuries Act malees no distinction on the basis of the source of the law sought to be enforced. It says nothing, in fact, about the subject. It provides simply that no action can be brought here to recover damages for a death occurring elsewhere. At the time of its enactment and for 48 years thereafter it was never conceived that a State could not, upon rational considerations, decline to entertain these foreign causes of action, whether arising under the laws of another State or under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. (See Douglas v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co. 279 U.S. 377, 387, 73 L. ed. 747, 752.) In the McKnett case, upon which the majority opinion is based, the court expressly recognized that “Congress has not attempted to compel states to provide courts for the enforcement of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.” (See, also, Mondou v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co. 223 U.S. 1, 56-57, 56 L. ed. 327, 349.) Yet this court, because of subsequent federal decisions construing the full-faith-and-credit clause to apply in cases of mere conflict of laws, now accomplishes the very thing which Congress has not even attempted. It can hardly be doubted that section 2 of our Injuries Act was valid when enacted; that the rationale of Hughes v. Fetter does not operate to impair, ab initio, our injuries statute and the intermediate decisions sustaining its validity. (See Great Northern Railway Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co. 287 U.S. 358, 364-365, 77 L. ed. 360, 366-367.) Wherein, then, did Illinois “discriminate” against federal causes of action? Aid cannot be found in cryptic references to “the interplay of judicial decisions.” The practical difference of treatment arose from the decision of the United States court in Hughes v. Fetter, not from action or choice by this State, whose statute makes no distinction whatever. Under such circumstances I think we would be warranted in giving effect to the statute in so far as its application is not limited by that decision. Fifty years ago this court, in a well-reasoned opinion, concluded on similar facts that the proviso in question is valid, and that the circuit court had no jurisdiction. That decision, Walton v. Pryor, 276 Ill. 563, is now overruled because an “interplay of judicial decisions” has compelled our courts to take jurisdiction of actions arising under the laws of other states, and has prohibited a state from discriminating against actions arising under federal law. To continue applying the statute, except in so far as its application is precluded by the Hughes v. Fetter interpretation of the full-faith-and-credit clause, is not in my opinion a discrimination by Illinois. In effect the present holding amounts to an amendment of the federal statute to enlarge the jurisdiction of our courts, and an interpretation of the supremacy clause to require enforcement of the “amendment.” Federal supremacy should not be stretched that far. I think some vitality still remains in the rule that “Each State, subject to restrictions of the Federal constitution, determines the limits of jurisdiction of its courts, the character of the controversies which shall be heard in them, and how far its courts having jurisdiction of the parties shall hear and decide transitory actions where the cause of action has arisen outside of the State.” Wall v. Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. 290 Ill. 227, 231. The presumption is that the statute in the case at bar is valid. One who challenges its validity assumes the burden of showing, upon rational grounds, that it violates some constitutional provision. This burden, in my opinion, has not been satisfied here.