Court Opinion

ID: 9418420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:24:59.02821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:02.740249
License: Public Domain

Mu. Justice Clarke,
dissenting.
The Western Maryland Railroad Company owned a line of railroad, extending from Hagerstown, Maryland, to Lurgan, where it connected with the line of the Reading *481Company, extending to Rutherford, in Pennsylvania. The two companies entered into a contract by which through freight trains, made up and manned by. crews primarily employed by either, should run through over the rails of the other company to Rutherford or Hagerstown, as the case might be. A crew from either line, arriving at the terminus of the other should return with a train made up by the company operating the latter- — together with any cars which might be “picked up” on the way.
Thus, for the purposes of operation, the line over which train crews worked was 81 miles in length, 34 miles of Western Maryland track and 47 miles of Reading track, and the relation of the men to the company, other than the one which originally employed them, while on its line, was defined by the contract quoted from in the opinion of the court.
Five of the paragraphs of this contract seem to me decisive of what that relation was, and of this case, viz:
5. Each company to pay the other an agreed compensation for the service of its engines and crews while on its fine.
“10. Each Company to be responsible and bear all damage and expenses to persons and property caused by all . accidents upon its road. ”
“17. Each Company to have the right to object to and to enforce objection to any unsatisfactory employee of the other running upon its lines.
“18. All cases of violation of rules or other derelictions by the employees of one Company while upon the road of the other shall be promptly investigated by the owning Company, and the result reported to the employing Company, with or without suggestions for disciplining, the employing Company to report to the other the action taken.”
“21. The employees of each Company while upon the - *482tracks of the other shall be subject to and conform to the rules, regulations, discipline and orders of the owning Company. ”
The deceased brakeman, Hull, was killed on the Reading tracks at Harrisburg, thirty miles away from any Western Maryland track, by the alleged negligence of a Reading engineer, when engaged, under the direction of a local Reading yardmaster, in “picking up” cars to be added to a train which was made up by the Reading Company at Rutherford and dispatched by Reading-officials from that terminal.
Thus, when he was killed, Hull was working on the Reading Railroad, subject to the “rules, regulations, discipline and orders” of the Reading Company and at the moment was acting under specific direction of a Reading yardmaster. The Reading Company was paying for the service which he was rendering when he was killed, it had authority to cause his discharge if his service was not satisfactory to it (paragraphs 17 and 18 of the contract, supra), and it had specifically contracted to be responsible for all damage to persons and property caused by accidents on its line growing out of the joint operation.
It is admitted that the service he was rendering was in the movement of interstate commerce, but upon the facts thus stated it is concluded in the opinion, that he was not - within the scope of the act providing that “Every common' carrier by railroad while engaging in commerce between any of the several States . . . shall be hable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such •carrier in such commerce, or, in ease of the death,” etc., (35 Stat. 66, c. 149, § 1).
I camrnt concur in this decision of tlie court for the", reason that the case seems to me to be ruled by a conclu- ' sion as to the applicable law, stated in a strongly reasoned .opinion in Standard Oil Co. v. Anderson, 212 U. S. 215, in this paragraph-:
“One may be‘in the general service of another, and, *483nevertheless, with respect to particular work, may be transferred, with his own consent or acquiescence, to the service of a third person, so that he becomes the servant of that person with all the legal consequences of the new relation. ”
By the contract of hiring Hull was in the general service of the Maryland Company, but “by his consent and acquiescence, ” he .was transferred to the service of the Reading Company whenever his train passed on to its tracks. ■ From that moment until his return to the Maryland Company’s tracks again he was engaged exclusively in the work of the Reading Company, that company paid for his services, he was under its “rules, regulations, discipline and orders, ” and it had authority to cause his discharge if his service was not satisfactory. He was under the control of that company as .to what he was to do and as to the details of the manner of doing it as completely as.if he had no other employer. He ceased for the time being to be the servant of the Maryland Company and became the servant of the Reading Company (212 U. S. 215, 224).
The Federal Employers’ Liability Act does not require that a person shall be in the exclusive employ of a railroad common carrier in order to come within its scope. It provides that such carrier shall be “liable in daihages to any person suffering injury while he is employed [engaged] by such carrier in such commerce,” and it is impossible for me to accept the conclusion that Hull, when in the pay of the Reading Company, assisting in operating Reading interstate trains on Reading tracks, under the direction solely of Reading officials, general and local, was not'‘ employed ’ ’ by it in interstate commerce, within the meaning of this provision.
We are not dealing here with mere words or with merely “conventional relations,” but with very serious realities. Enacted as the Federal Employers’ Liability Act was to bring the United States law up to the humanitarian level *484of the laws of poany of the States, by abolishing the unjust and irritating fellow servant rule, by modifying the often harsh contributory negligence rule, and by otherwise changing the common-law liability of interstate rail carriers to their employees, it should receive a liberal construction to promote its important purpose. Its terms invite the application of the rule, widely applied by other courts and clearly approved by this court, in the case cited, that a man may be in the general service of one, and also, with respect to a part of his service — -to particular work— be in the service of another employer, so that he becomes for the time being the servant of the latter “with all the legal consequences of the new relation.” The line of demarcation could not be more clearly drawn than it was in this case, and the rule seems to me to be sharply and decisively applicable.
In the opinion of the court it is said: “It is clear that each company retained control of its own train crews.” Upon the contrary, it seems to me, it is clear that neither company retained any control whatever over the crews primarily employed by it while they were on the line of the other company. — “21. The employees of each Company while upon the tracks of the other shall be subject to and conform to the rules, regulations, discipline and orders of the owning Company, ” was the contract between the two compames under which they were operating when Hull was negligently killed.