Court Opinion

ID: 9651144
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:08:54.811804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:30.610468
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
(1) I think that the plaintiff’s cause of action arises under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 35 Stat. 65, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51, and not at common law as the majority hold. The judgment in the plaintiff’s favor should be reversed because, though his damages may be found to be the same, the court below must determine whether the defendant was engaged in interstate commerce and whether the plaintiff was employed by the defendant in such commerce.1 On the record before us, despite the probably inadvertent admissions of his counsel to the contrary, I conclude that he was so employed, but the court below has failed to find the underlying facts upon which conclusions of law as to the plaintiff’s status in relation to interstate commerce may be based.
The proof shows that the plaintiff was employed by the defendant as a train dispatcher at Jersey City where he issued directions to operators in respect to some of the defendant’s trains moving in interstate as well as intrastate commerce. The majority of this court conclude that because the plaintiff had left his place of employment at Jersey City, had boarded one of the defendant’s trains to return to his home in Newark and was descending to the platform at one of Newark’s stations when he was injured, that he is beyond the protection of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
The Federal Employers’ Liability Act was intended by Congress to be applied liberally for the protection of railroad employees. While the facts in the case at bar differ somewhat from those of Erie R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 170, 173, 37 S.Ct. 556, 557, 61 L.Ed. 1057, Ann.Cas,1918B, 662, the principle enunciated in the cited case by Mr. Justice Van Devanter seems applicable. Winfield had brought suit under a New Jersey statute (chap. 95, Laws 1911, N.J.S.A. 34:15-1 et seq.) against Erie R. Co. to obtain compensation for the death of an employee whose duties consisted of switching cars containing freight in interstate and intrastate commerce. At the close of his day’s work the employee had taken his engine to the place where it was to remain for the night and had started to leave the yard on foot. His route lay across some of the tracks, and while crossing one of these he was struck by an engine and received injuries from which he died. Mr. Justice Van Devanter stated: “In leaving the carrier’s yard at the close of his day’s work the deceased was but discharging a duty of his employment. * * * Like his trip through the yard to his engine in the morning, it was a necessary incident of his day’s work, and partook of the character of that work as a whole, for it was no more an incident of *959one part than of another. His day’s work was in both interstate and intrastate commerce, and so, when he was leaving the yard at the time of the injury, his employment was in both. That he was employed in interstate commerce is therefore plain, and that his employment also extended to intrastate commerce is, for present purposes, of no importance.”
In Lukon v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 3 Cir., 131 F.2d 327, 329, we held that a section-hand employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad who had quit work for the day and who was walking home along the main line tracks of the railroad (though still upon the section on which he was ordinarily employed) when he was injured, was within the protection of the Act. We stated, “It is true that Lukon might have left the tracks and gone to his home by means of public roads. It was not his custom to do this, and on the day of the accident he pursued his usual course of going home along the tracks as did other members of his crew.” We held that the employee was entitled to recover under the Act. The majority distinguish the circumstances of the Lukon case from those of the case at bar on the ground that while Lukon’s work was over for the day, “he was walking toward his home along the right of way upon which he customarily worked.” This distinction seems to me to be immaterial and I think that in the decision in the instant case the majority are in reality overruling the Lukon decision.
Attention is directed to Hendricks v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 251 N.Y. 297, 167 N.E. 449, decided by the Court of Appeals of New York in 1929.2 In this case Hendricks who was engaged in interstate commerce had brought a suit under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act for personal injuries sustained by him under circumstances stated by Judge O’Brien as follows: “After the close of working hours, plaintiff was given free transportation by defendant to the station nearest his home. The train consisted of seven or eight cars. He occupied the last seat in the car next to the rear. From conflicting evidence, the jury could find that this car was crowded. It stopped on a trestle some distance south of the station. The station platform was located on the right side of the train, north 0of the car occupied by plaintiff, and separated from it by two main line tracks. Exit from the rear of plaintiff’s car was obstructed on the right by a steel girder which contributed to the support of the trestle. The forward end of the car extended a few feet north of and free from this obstruction. Plaintiff testifying that he feared that the train would start before he could traverse the length of the car and emerge from the forward end and that he discovered that his exit from the rear end on the right was blocked' by the girder, descended from the rear end' on the left, alighted upon planks forming part of the trestle’s deck, and, breaking: through them, fell to the street and sustained serious injuries.”
The court, declaring that Hendricks had' a cause of action under the Act, held that he had not severed his employment with the defendant, that he was yet on his employer’s premises, that the relation of master and servant continued to exist and that he was still engaged in discharging a duty of his employment. The court cited Erie R. Co. v. Winfield, supra, and Knowles v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 223 N.Y. 513, 119 N.E. 1023. It reversed the judgment of the Appellate Division which had' denied Hendricks recovery.
In the case at bar the plaintiff’s return-by the defendant’s train to Newark in order that he might go to his home at the end of his day’s work was, in the words of Mr. Justice Van Devanter in the Winfield’ case, “a necessary incident of his day’s-work, and partook of the character of that work as a whole.” In going home, Sassaman was engaged in discharging a duty of his employment. He was still upon his employer’s premises. The relationship of master and servant had not been terminated. He was therefore within the purview of the Act. The majority lay emphasis upon the fact that the plaintiff was-under no compulsion to make use of the-defendant’s train in order to go from Jersey City to Newark; that he might have gone home in some other way. This is true, but there was certainly nothing unreasonable in the plaintiff making use of the convenient means furnished him by his employer. He used the defendant’s railroad with the express consent of the defendant for the defendant gave him a pass for that purpose. The rulings of the Supreme Court in Bountiful Brick Co. v. Giles, 276 U.S. 154, 158, 48 S.Ct. 221, 72 L.Ed. 507, 66 A.L.R. 1402, and in Cudahy Co. v. Parramore, 263 U.S. 418, 426, 44 S.Ct, *960153, 68 L.Ed. 366, 30 A.L.R. 532, therefore, are -apposite.3
If the conclusions which I have expressed are correct, the plaintiff has a right of action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act which supersedes any right of action which he might have had at common law. The provisions of the pass purporting to absolve the defendant from liability for negligence are of no effect by reason of Section 5 of the Act.
The fact that the parties in the case at bar elected to try the case without regard to the provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act should not be a paramount consideration for insisting that such an erroneous course be pursued to the end. See Philadelphia & R. R. Co. v. Polk, 256 U.S. 332, 333, 334, 41 S.Ct. 518, 65 L.Ed. 958. The case was tried to the court. I conclude that we should direct the court below to reopen the record so that the parties may present any further evidence which may be pertinent to issues arising under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, for argument on those issues, and for appropriate findings of fact and conclusions of law. The judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded for the purposes indicated.
(2) The majority, holding the Federal Employers’ Liability Act to be inapplicable, award Sassaman the same status which was granted to the drover, Chatman, by the Supreme Court in Norfolk Southern R. Co. v. Chatman, 244 U.S. 276, 37 S.Ct. 499, 61 L.Ed. 1131, L.R.A.1917F, 1128, on the basis of the legal and commercial history of carriers’ live stock contracts. There is no doubt that the Hepburn Act governs the relation in interstate commerce of the users of passes to the railroads which issue them. Kansas City Southern R. Co. v. Van Zant, 260 U.S. 459, 468, 43 S.Ct. 176, 67 L.Ed. 348. But the Hepburn Act forbids the giving of an “interstate free * * * pass” and does not relate to the issuance of intrastate free passes.4 Sassaman’s “over-the-system” pass was valid whether used by him in interstate or intrastate commerce. The pass, therefore, possessed two aspects, each clearly severable in fact and in law, and I can see no inconsistency in holding under the circumstances of the case at bar that Sassaman was making an intrastate journey as an incident to his employment in interstate commerce. Since the pass was used by the plaintiff on an intrastate journey at, the time of the occurrence of the accident, the defendant’s liability (unless cognizable under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act) necessarily was defined by the law of New Jersey.5 See Schulz v. Parker, 158 Iowa 42, 54, 139 N.W. 173, 178, Ann.Cas.1915D, 553; Irvine v. Postal Telegraph-Cable Co., 37 Cal.App. 60, 64, 65, 173 P. 487, 488, 489. Compare New York Central R. Co. v. Mohney, 252 U.S. 152, 40 S.Ct. 287, 64 L.Ed. 502, 9 A.L.R. 496, and Bush v. Bremner, 8 Cir., 36 F.2d 189, 191. Compare also Employers’ Liability Cases (Howard v. Illinois C. R. Co.), 207 U.S. 463, 28 S.Ct. 141, 52 L.Ed. 297.6 If the conclusions which I have ex*961pressed are correct, the interpretations which the majority put on the Hepburn Act and the Chatman case must fall.
Assuming arguendo, however, that the Hepburn Act does govern the relation of Sassaman to the Railroad Company under the pass despite the intrastate nature of his journey, 1 am unable to agree with the majority. Their view entails a return to those early decisions which gave an employee, riding on a pass on the carrier which employed him, the status of a “passenger for hire” in order to mitigate the harshness of the fellow servant rule or of the doctrine of assumption of risk.
To effect this result, many courts held that the relationship of master and servant terminated immediately at the end of each tour of duty of the employee or treated the pass as part of the compensation of the employee. Typical of these cases is Hebert v. Portland R. Co., 1907, 103 Me. 315, 69 A. 266, 125 Am.St.Rep. 297, 13 Ann.Cas. 886. A case, on which the majority rely, and which illustrates the second view, is McNulty v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 1897, 182 Pa. 479, 38 A. 524, 38 L.R.A. 524, 61 Am.St.Rep. 721.7
The majority deem Sassaman to have been a passenger for hire and not an employee at the time of the accident. They arrive at this result by making a distinction between the status of an employee who makes use of a pass to ride to or from his work and an employee who uses the pass for his own purposes. A member of an employee’s family who is riding on a pass is put in the latter category and the majority opinion therefore concludes that the rulings of the Supreme Court in Charleston & W. C. R. Co. v. Thompson, 234 U.S. 576, 34 S.Ct. 964, 58 L.Ed. 1476, and Kansas City Southern R. Co. v. Van Zant, 260 U.S. 459, 43 S.Ct. 176, 67 L.Ed. 348, are inapplicable to the case at bar. The decisions cited hold that the provisions of a pass which caused the user to assume the risk of injury by the carrier were valid in respect to a member of the family of an employee. The majority opinion in the case at bar holds simply this; when a pass is used by an employee who is riding for his own purposes the pass is a gratuity; but, if the pass is used by the employee to ride to or from work it is not a gratuity and the employee is a passenger for hire.8
At this point what I deem to be the erroneous conception of the majority opinion clearly appears. First, it may be asked, if when riding to or from work the employee is not riding for his own purposes as the majority assert, for whose purposes is he riding? The answer to this question seems obvious. The employee is riding for his employer’s purposes, as an incident of his employment, and therefore, he should be deemed to be within the purview of the *962Federal Employers’ Liability Act if he is engaged in interstate commerce when working for his employer. Second, if the pass to the employee who is riding to or from work is not a gratuity, this is because there is a consideration for it. That consideration can only be the employee’s services to the carrier. If the consideration for the employee’s pass consists of the services to the carrier which employs him and the pass was issued under the Hepburn Act, that carrier must be deemed to have violated Section 6(7) of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C.A. § 6(7), a conclusion not to be presumed. This precise point was passed upon by the Supreme Court in the Thompson case.9 And it was there held that the issuance of passes to those named in the Hepburn Act was gratuitous “in the strictest sense * * *."10
Drovers are included in the exception of the Hepburn Act. In the Chatman case the Supreme Court treated the pass to Chatman not as a gratuity but as if it had been a ticket which had been paid for. The Court reached this conclusion because, in deciding New York Cent. R. Co. v. Lockwood, 17 Wall. 357, 21 L.Ed. 627, it had ruled that a drover in charge of his stock and traveling on a pass was a passenger for hire.11 In both the Lockwood and the Chatman cases the Supreme Court treated the contract for the carriage of the stock as the consideration for the carriage of the drover. But it is notable that the majority opinion in the case at bar does not describe or define the consideration which rendered the- pass to Sassaman not a gratuity. Absent such a description or definition, I am compelled to the conclusion that *963at common law the provisions of the pass would free the defendant of liability for its negligence.
The difficulties which the majority opinion imposes upon carriers and employees of carriers to determine whether a pass as used by an employee is gratuitous or free, whether it is used to travel to or from work, or for the employee’s own purposes, •or for a combination of both, are very great; the tests which the majority opinion lay down, vague and uncertain. Moreover, the employee or his personal representative is not permitted to bring suit under the remedial federal act and despite the fact that the employee has been injured or killed while engaged in a journey incident to his employment in interstate commerce, recovery may be barred on the ground of contributory negligence.

 The majority opinion states that “The complaint lays federal jurisdiction of the controversy upon the diversity of the citizenship of the parties which the trial court found accordingly.” In my opinion it also aptly charges liability against the defendant under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act as well as attempting to state a cause of action at common law. Strictly speaking, the complaint does not allege the plaintiff’s citizenship. It states that the plaintiff is “a resident of” New Jersey. As is pointed out in Moore's Federal Practice, p. 484, “Residence in a State does not necessarily make one a citizen of it. It follows that the statement that a party is a resident of a particular State is not equivalent in its legal effect to the allegation that he is a citizen of that State.” But I think that the District Court was justified in treating the allegation of the plaintiff’s residence in New Jersey as the equivalent of an allegation that he was a citizen of New Jersey. The evidence plainly shows that he was a citizen of New Jersey.

 Judges Cardozo and Lehman dissented but did not state their reasons therefor.

 It is interesting to note also that the Court of Common Pleas of New Jersey-has given an interpretation to the Workmen’s Compensation Act of New Jersey, N.J.S.A. 34:15-1, et seq., similar to that which I have placed on the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. See Micieli v. Erie R. Co., 29 A.2d 412, 20 N.J.Misc. 294. In the cited case the court held that a baggage porter, employed by the defendant, who was riding on a free pass on the defendant’s railroad on his way home from work was within the coverage of the New Jersey statute. A similar result was reached by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Knorr v. Central Railroad of New Jersey, 268 Pa. 172, 110 A. 797, in construing the application of the Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1915, 77 P.S.Pa. § 1 et seq. to a railroad fireman returning home from work.

 The pertinent provisions of the Hepburn Act, Section 1(7) of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C.A. § 1(7) are as follows: “No common carrier subject to the provisions [of the Interstate Commerce Act] shall * * * issue or give any interstate free ticket, free pass, or free transportation for passengers, except to its employees, * *

 A pass in intrastate commerce issued in New Jersey must conform to the requirements of the New Jersey Law. See N.J.S.A. 48:3-31.

 There is some doubt as to whether the plaintiff could recover if the law of New Jersey were applied. Though no case has been found which is directly in point there are decisions of the New Jersey courts which indicate that a release of liability to the carrier embodied in a “free” pass is not contrary to public policy and that a “free” pass is one for which no consideration has been given or paid. See Sheridan v. New Jersey & N. Y. R. Co., 104 N.J.L. 622, 141 A. 811. Cf. Morris v. West Jersey & S. R. Co., 87 N.J.L. 579, 94 A. 593. See, however, a possibly applicable New Jersey Statute; N.J.S.A. 48:12-100. It would *961be fruitless to discuss the question fully in a dissenting opinion and to endeavor to arrive at the solution of it.

 Reference to the opinion in the Mc-Nulty case will illustrate my point. Chief Justice Sterrett of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania stated that McNulty was employed to work on a bridge belonging to the defendant at Tacony, Pennsylvania, “* * * under a contract of employment, by which he was to receive one dollar and twenty cents a day; and the company also contracted to transport him from his home to the place where his work was to be performed and from that place back to his home at night, when his work was over.” McNulty was killed on his way home from work by a collision between the train in which he was riding and another train operated by the defendant. The Chief Justice went on to say, “The conclusively established facts as to the contractual relation of the parties are not susceptible of any other conclusion than that the transportation of [McNulty] from and to his home, in Bristol, was part of the consideration moving from the company to him, and given him, with the $1.20, in payment of a day’s wages. That being so, he had virtually paid for his passage home in the car in which he was riding at the time of the collision, and was therefore a passenger, and not an employe, since his day’s work was done and he had entered the car for the sole purpose of being carried home.”
It will be noted how different are the facts of the McNulty case from those of the case at bar.

 The inconsistency of the majority opinion is demonstrated by such cases as Tomlinson v. Chicago, etc., R. Co., 8 Cir., 97 F. 252; Moss v. Johnson, 22 Ill. 633; Texas, etc., R. Co. v. Smith, 5 Cir., 67 F. 524, 31 L.R.A, 321. In the cases cited the employee was certainly not riding on the pass for his own purposes, but was engaged in the business of his employer, such as collecting tools, repairing fences, or inspecting bridges. None the less, recovery was denied on the ground that the employee had assumed the risk or had been injured or killed by the negligence of a fellow servant.

 See 234 U.S. at pages 577, 578, 34 S.Ct. at page 965, 58 L.Ed. 1476. Mr. Justice Holmes stated, “The main question is whether, when the statute permits the issue of a ‘free pass’ to its employees and their families it means what it says. The railroad was under no obligation to issue the pass. It may be doubted whether it could have entered into one, for then the services would be the consideration for the duty and the pass, and by § 6 it was forbidden to charge ‘a greater or less or different compensation’ for transportation of passengers from that in its published rates. The antithesis in the statute is between the reasonable charges to be shown in its schedules and the free passes which it may issue only to those specified in the act. To most of those enumerated the free pass obviously would be gratuitous in the strictest sense, and when all that may receive them are grouped in a single exception, we think it plain that the statute contemplates the pass as gratuitous in the same sense to all.”
Compare the law of New Jersey. See N.J.S.A. 48:12-100.

 It is interesting to observe that in the Brotherhoods’ Memorial, 59th Cong., 1st Sess., 40 Cong.Rec. 7822 (referred to in the majority opinion in its note No. 7), issuance of passes to families of employees was regarded b.v the Legislative Representative of the Brotherhood as a consideration or as part of the compensation for the services performed by employees of the railroads. The Memorial stated in material part, “As to the families of employees: The contractual relations now existing between many roads and their men provide in certain eases for transportation for employees, their families, and household goods. This is regarded as a consideration or a part of the compensation for the services performed.”
The reference to the use of free transportation by employees’ families to enable them to move with their household goods from place to place is a reference to those situations which may arise when railroad employees are compelled to move their places of abode from one division head to another as happens when employees are transferred. Assume that an employee traveling on a pass was injured in an accident caused by the carrier’s negligence while moving his family from Newark to Pittsburg because he had been transferred from one division to another. Would the majority hold that such a trip was not an incident of his employment by the carrier which partook of the character of his work as a whole?
It should be observed also that in the memorial addressed by the Brotherhoods to the President of the Senate passes to employees’ families were considered by the Legislative Representative to have been issued on substantially the same basis as the passes to the employees themselves.

 In the Lockwood case, 17 Wall. at page 359, 21 L.Ed. 627, Mr. Justice Bradley stated, “It may be assumed in limine, that the case was ene of carriage for hire; for though the pass certifies that the plaintiff was entitled to pass free, yet his passage was one of the mutual terms of the arrangement for carrying his cattle. The question is, therefore, distinctly raised, whether a railroad company carrying passengers for hire, can lawfully stipulate not to be answerable for their own or their servants’ negligence in reference to such carriage.”