Baltimore Co v. Baugh
Decision Date | 01 May 1893 |
Docket Number | No. 89,89 |
Citation | 37 L.Ed. 772,13 S.Ct. 914,149 U.S. 368 |
Parties | BALTIMORE & O. R. CO. v. BAUGH |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Statement by Mr. Justice BREWER:
John Baugh, defendant in error, was employed as a fireman on a locomotive of the plaintiff in error, and while so employed was injured, as is claimed, through the negligence of the engineer in charge thereof. He commenced a suit to recover for these injuries in the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of Ohio.
The circumstances of the injury are these: The locomotive was manned by one Hite, as engineer, and Baugh, as fireman, and was what is called in the testimony a 'helper.' On May 4, 1885, it left Bellaire, Ohio, attached to a freight train, which it helped to the top of the grade about 20 miles west of that point. At the top of the grade the helper was detached, and then returned alone to Bellaire. There were two ways in which it could return, in conformity to the rules of the company: one, on the special orders of the train dispatcher at Newark, and the other, by following some regular scheduled train, carrying signals to notify trains coming in the opposite direction that the helper was following it. This method was called in the testimony 'flagging back.' On the day in question, without special orders, and not following any scheduled train, the helper started back for Bellaire, and on the way collided with a regular local train, and in the collision Baugh was injured. Baugh had been in the employ of the railroad company about a year, had been flreman about six months, and had run on the helper, two trips a day, about two months. He knew that the helper had to keep out of the way of the trains, and was familiar with the method of flagging back.
No testimony was offered by the defendant, and at the close of plaintiff's testimony the defendant asked the court to direct a nonsuit, which motion was overruled, to which ruling an exception was duly taken. In its charge to the jury the court gave this instruction: 'If the injury results from negligence or carelessness on the part of one so placed in authority over the employe of the company, who is injured, as to direct and control that employe, then the company is liable.' To which instruction an exception was duly taken. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff for $6,750, and upon this verdict judgment was entered, to reverse which the railroad company sued out a writ of error from this court.
John K. Cowen, J. H. Collins, and Hugh L. Bond, Jr., for plaintiff in error.
L. Danford, for defendant in error.
Mr. Justice BREWER, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.
The single question presented for our determination is whether the engineer and fireman of this locomotive, running alone and without any train attached, were fellow servants of the company, so as to preclude the latter from recovering from the company for injuries caused by the negligence of the former.
This is not a question of local law, to be settled by an examination merely of the decisions of the supreme court of Ohio, the state in which the cause of action arose, and in which the suit was brought, but rather one of general law, to be determined by a reference to all the authorities, and a consideration of the principles underlying the relations of master and servant.
The question as to what is a matter of local, and what of general, law, and the extent to which in the latter this court should follow the decisions of the state courts, has been often presented. The unvarying rule is that in matters of the latter class this court, while leaning towards an agreement with the views of the state courts, always exercises an independent judgment; and as unvarying has been the course of decision that the question of the responsibility of a railroad corporation for injuries caused to or by its servants is one of general law. In the case of Swift v. Tyson, 16 Pet. 1, the first proposition was considered at length. On page 18 it is thus stated:
Notwithstanding the interpretation placed by this decision upon the thirty-fourth section of the judiciary act of 1789, congress has never amended that section; so it must be taken as clear that the construction thus placed is the true construction, and acceptable to the legislative as well as to the judicial branch of the government. This decision was in 1842. Forty years thereafter, in Burgess v. Seligman, 107 U. S. 20, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 10, the matter was again fully considered, and it was said by Mr. Justice Bradley, on pages 33 and 34, 107 U. S. and pages 21 and 22, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep., that And in the note referred to over 50 cases are cited, in which the proposition had been in terms stated or in fact recognized. Since the case of Burgess v. Seligman the same porposition has been again and again affirmed.
Whatever differences of opinion may have been expressed have not been on the question whether a matter of general law should be settled by the independent judgment of this court, rather than through an adherence to the decisions of the state courts, but upon the other question, whether a given matter is one of local or of general law. Thus in the case of Bucher v. Railroad Co., 125 U. S. 555, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 974, these facts appeared: A statute of Massachusetts forbade travel on the Lord's day, except for necessity or charity, under penalty of a fine not exceeding $10. The plaintiff, while riding in the cars of the defendant in violation of that statute, was injured through its negligence. The defendant pleaded his violation of this statute as a bar to any recovery, citing repeated decisions of the highest court of that state sustaining such a defense. This court...
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