Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company v. General Burnette
| Decision Date | 29 November 1915 |
| Docket Number | No. 66,66 |
| Citation | 239 U.S. 199,36 S.Ct. 75,60 L.Ed. 226 |
| Parties | ATLANTIC COAST LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. GENERAL BURNETTE |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Frederic D. McKenney, John Spalding Flannery, and F. S. Spruill for plaintiff in error.
No appearance for defendant in error.
The plaintiff (defendant in error) was a fireman employed by the defendant. On October 5, 1907, he was injured by its negligence while working upon a train running from South Carolina to North Carolina. He brought this action on January 7, 1910, and judgment was ordered for a certain sum by the supreme court of the state. 163 N. C. 186, 79 S. E. 414. The supreme court assumed that the case was governed by the act of April 22, 1908, chap. 149, 35 Stat. at L. 65, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 8657. Two errors are assigned. First, in holding that statute applicable to the cause of action, and second, in allowing a recovery under it in an action begun more than two years after the cause of action accrued. Id. § 6. The case was not argued in this court on behalf of the defendant in error, but we gather from the record in the opinion that while, at the trial, the railroad, upon issues not before us, insisted that the Federal statute was not applicable, the contrary was admitted before the supreme court; so that, although the admission seems to have been made with the second question only in view, the first point would appear not to have been drawn to the attention of either court, and there was no discussion of how the case would stand apart from the act. The second objection was met by deciding that the limitation of two years imposed by § 6 could not be relied upon for want of a plea setting it up.
It would seem a miscarriage of justice if the plaintiff should recover upon a statute that did not govern the case, in a suit that the same act declared too late to be maintained. A right may be waived or lost by a failure to assert it at the proper time (Burnet v. Desmornes, 226 U. S. 145, 57 L. ed. 159, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 63); but when a party has meant to insist on all the rights it might have, such a result would be unusual and extreme. The record shows a case to which the act of 1908 did not apply (Winfree v. Northern P. R. Co. 227 U. S. 296, 57 L. ed. 518, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 273), and which the earlier act of 1906 [34 Stat. at L. 232, chap. 3073] probably could not affect (Employers' Liability Cases (Howard v. Illinois C. R. Co.) 207 U. S. 463, 489, 52 L. ed. 297, 305, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 141. It also shows that the action was brought too late, and that the defendant insisted upon that point, although it had not pleaded what was apparent on the allegations of the declaration and the admissions of the answer.
In dealing with the enactments of a paramount authority, such as Congress is, within its sphere, over the states, we are not to be curious in...
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