Court Opinion

ID: 9418100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:08:35.973322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:55.380061
License: Public Domain

Mk. Justice Moody
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a writ of error directed to the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio. The plaintiff in error is the widow of Henry E. Chambers, who, while in. the employ of the defendant iri error as a locomotive engineer and engaged in the performance of his duty, received injuries from which he shortly afterwards died. Both husband and wife were at the time of the injuries and death citizens of Pennsylvania, and the .wife has since continued to be such. The injuries and death occurred in Pennsylvania. The widow brought an action, in the Court of Common Pleas of the State of Ohio, against the defendant railroad, alleging that the injuries were caused by its negligence. In that’ action she sought to recover damages under certain parts of the Constitution and laws of Pennsylvania printed in the margin,1 which provided for the recovery of damages *147for death. The plaintiff had a vérdict and judgment in the Court of Common Pleas, from which, by petition in error, the case was removed first to an intermediate court and then to the Supreme Court of the State. There it was insisted by the defendant that the action could not be maintained in the courts of Ohio. The Supreme Court sustained this contention, reversed the judgments of the court below, and entered judgment for the defendant. A statute of Ohio provided that “ whenever the death of a citizen of this State has been or may be caused by a wrongful act, neglect or default in another State, territory, or foreign country, for which a right to maintain an action and recover damages.in respect thereof is given by a statute of such other State, territory or foreign country, such right of action may be enforced in this State within the time prescribed for the commencement of such action by the statute of such other State, territory or foreign country.” There was no other statutory provision on the subject. The Supreme Court held that the action authorized by this statute for a déath occurring in another State was only when the death .was that of a citizen of Ohio; that the common law of the State forbade such action; and that as the person, for whose death damages were demanded in this case, was not a citizen of Ohio, the action would not lie. The plaintiff brings the case here on writ of error, alleging that the statute thus construed and the judg*148ment based upon that construction violates Article IV, section 2, paragraph 1, of the Constitution of the United States, which provides that “ The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” This allegation presents the only question for our consideration.
The defendant objects to our jurisdiction to reexamine the judgment because the Federal question was not properly and seasonably raised in the courts of the State. But it clearly and unmistakably appears from the opinion of the Supreme Court that the Federal question was assumed to be in issue, was decided against the claim of Federal right, and that the decision of the question was essential to the judgment rendered. This is enough to give this court the authority to reexamine that question on writ of error. San José Land & Water Company v. San José Ranch Company, 189 U. S. 177; Haire v. Rice, 204 U. S. 291.
In the decision of the merits of the case there are some fundamental, principles which are of controlling effect. The right to sue and defend in. the courts is the alternative of force-. In an organized society it is the right conservative of all other rights, .and lies at the foundation of orderly government. It is one of the highest and most essential privileges of citizenship, and must be allowed by each State to the citizens of all other States to the precise extent that it is allowed to its own citizens. Equality of treatment in this respect is not left to depend upon comity between the States, but is granted and protected by the Federal Constitution. Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C. 371, 380, per Washington, J.; Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, 430, per Clifford, J.; Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U. S. 107, 114, per Fuller, C. J.; Blake v. McClung, 172 U. S. 239, 252, per Harlan, J.
But, subject to the restrictions of the Federal Constitution, the State may determine the limits of the jurisdiction of its courts, and the character of the controversies which- shall be heard in them. The state policy decides whether and to what *149extent the State will entertain in its courts transitory actions, where the causes of action have arisen in other jurisdictions. Different States may havé different policies and the same State may have different policies at different times. But any policy the State may choose to adopt must operate in the same way on its own citizens and those of other States. The privileges which it affords to one class it must afford to the other: Any law by which privileges to begin actions in the courts are given to its own citizens and. withheld from the citizens of other States is void, because in conflict with the supreme law of the land.
The law of Ohio must be brought to the test of these fundamental principles. It appears from the decision under review (and we need no other authority) that by the common law of the State the courts had no jurisdiction to entertain actions to recover damages for death where the cause of action arose under the laws of other States or countries. This rule was universal in its application. The citizenship of the persons who brought action or of the person for whose death a remedy was sought was immaterial. If the death was caused outside the State and the right of action arose under laws foreign to the State, its courts were1 impartially closed to all persons seeking a remedy, entirely irrespective of their citizenship. The common law, however, was modified by a statute which, as amended, became the statute under consideration here. By this statute the courts were given jurisdiction over certain actions of this description, while the common law was left to control all others. A discrimination was thus introduced into the law of the State. The discrimination was based solely on the citizenship of the deceased. The courts were open in such cases to -plaintiffs who were citizens of other States if the deceased was a citizen of Ohio; they were closed to plaintiffs who were citizens of Ohio if the deceased was a citizen of another State. So far as the parties to the litigation are concerned, the State by its laws made no discrimination based on citizenship, and offered precisely the same privileges to- citizens of *150other States which it allowed to its own. There is, therefore, at least a literal conformity with the requirements of the Constitution. '
But it may be urged, on the other hand, that the conformity is only superficial; that the death action may be given by the foreign law to the person killed, at the instant when he was vivus et mortuus, and made to survive and pass to his representatives (Higgins v. Railroad, 155 Massachusetts, 176); that in such cases it is the right of action of the deceased which is brought into court by those who have it by survivorship; and that, as the test of jurisdiction is the citizenship of the person in whom the right of .action was originally vested, and the action is entertained if that person iyas a citizen of Ohio and declined if he was a citizen of another State, there is in a real and substantial sense a discrimination forbidden by the Constitution.
If such a case should arise, and be denied hearing in the Ohio ■courts by the Ohio law, then as the denial would be based upon the citizenship of that person in whom the right of action originally vested, it might be necessary to consider Whether the Ohio law did not' in substance grant privileges to Ohio citizens which it withheld from citizens of other States. But no such case is before us. The Pennsylvania statute, which created the right of action sought to be enforced in the Ohio courts, has been construed by the courts of Pennsylvania. The applicable section is section 19 of the act of 1851. Of it the Pennsylvania court said in Fink v. Garman. 40 Pa. St. 95, 103:
“The 18th section was apparently intended to regulate a common law right of action, by securing to it survivorship; but the 19th section was creative of a new cause of action, wholly unknown to .the common law. And the right of action was not given to the person suffering the injury, since no man could sue for his own death, but to his widow or personal representative. It was not survivorship of the cause of action which the legislature meant to provide for by this section, but *151the creation of an original cause of action in favor of a surviving uidow or personal representative.”
This is the settled interpretation of the act. Mann v. Weiand 81½ Pa. St. 243; Pennsylvania Railroad v. Bock, 93 Pa. St. 427; Engle's Estate, 21 Pa. C. C. 299; McCafferty v. Pennsylvania Railroad, 193 Pa. St. 339. It appears clearly,• therefore, that the cause of action which the plaintiff sought to enforce was pne created for her benefit and vested originally in her. She has not been denied access to the Ohio courts because she is not a citizen of that State, but because the cause of action which she presents is not cognizable in those courts. She would have been denied hearing of the same cause for the same reason if she had been a citizen of Ohio. In excluding her cause pf action from the courts the law of Ohio has not been influenced by her citizenship, which is regarded as immaterial. We are unable to see that in this case the plaintiff has been refused any right which the Constitution of the United States confers upon her, an'd accordingly the judgment is

Affirmed.

 Sections 18 and 19 of the act of April 15, 18.51, are as follows, Pennsylvania Laws, 1851, p.- 674: “Sec. 18. No action hereafter brought to recover damages for injuries to the person by negligence or default, shall abate by reason of the death of the plaintiff; but the personal representatives of the deceased may be substituted as plaintiff, and prosecute the suit to final judgment and satisfaction. Sec. 19. Whenever death shall be occasioned by unlawful violence or negligence, and no suit for damages be brought by the. party injured, during his or her life, the widow of any such deceased, or if there be no widow, the personal representatives, may maintain an action for and recover damages for the death thus occasioned.” *147Sections 1 and 2 of the act of April 26, 1855, are as follows, Pennsylvania Laws, 1856, p. 309': “Séc. 1. The persons entitled to recover damages'for any injury causing death,- shall be the husband, widow, children or parents of the deceased, and no other relative, and the sum recovered shall go to them in the proportion they take his or her personal estate in case of in-r testacy, and that without liability to creditors. Sec. 2. The declaration shall state who are the parties entitled in such action; the action shall be brought within one year after the death and not thereafter.” By section 21, article III, of the constitution of the State of .Pennsylvania of 1874, it is provided as follows, to wit: “Sec. 21. No act of the General Assembly shall limit the amount to be recovered for injuries .resulting in death, or for injuries to person or property, and in case of death from such injuries the right of action shall survive, and the General Assembly shall prescribe for whose benefit such actions shall be prosecuted.”