Chicago, R.I.&P. Ry. Co. v. Indus. Bd. of Illinois

• Decision Date: 22 June 1916
• Docket Number: No. 10713.,10713.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO. v. INDUSTRIAL BOARD OF ILLINOIS.

273 Ill. 528

113 N.E. 80

CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO.

v.INDUSTRIAL BOARD OF ILLINOIS.

No. 10713.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 22, 1916.

Error to Circuit Court, Peoria County; Clyde E. Stone, Judge.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Nettie Bassett, administratrix, to recover death compensation, against the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company, the employer. Judgment for claimant on certiorari to review award of the Industrial Board, and the employer brings error. Affirmed.Stevens, Miller & Elliott, of Peoria (M. L. Bell and A. B. Enoch, both of Chicago, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

Covey, Campbell & Covey, of Peoria (Edwin V. Champion, of Peoria, of counsel), for defendant in error.

COOKE, J.

Nettie Bassett, administratrix of the estate of Robert L. Stockton, deceased, applied to the Industrial Board of Illinois for adjustment of her claim against plaintiff in error, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company, on account of the death of her intestate. The Industrial Board awarded her the sum of $6.05 per week for a period of 416 weeks from the 4th day of April, 1914. Plaintiff in error sued out a writ of certiorari from the circuit court of Peoria county to review the record of the Industrial Board. Return was duly made to the writ, and upon the hearing in the circuit court judgment was entered quashing the writ. To review that judgment this writ of error has been sued out.

As stated by plaintiff in error, the point in controversy is whether the Workmen's Compensation Act of Illinois or the federal Employers' Liability Act applies. If, as plaintiff in error contends, Stockton was engaged in interstate commerce at the time of his injury, then the federal act applies, and there is no liability under the Illinois Workmen's Compensation Act. Staley v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 268 Ill. 356, 109 N. E. 342, L. R. A. 1916A, 450.

The facts undisputed and stipulated are that Stockton was employed by plaintiff in error as a watchman or detective in its yards in the city of Peoria. It was his duty to make the rounds of the yards and inspect the freight house and various portions of the yards, to see whether or not anybody was improperly there, and he had authority to arrest any one trespassing in the yards. On the evening of April 4, 1914, while he was on duty in the yards, he met with an accident which resulted in his death on April 7th. It was stipulated that at the time of the accident there were one or more cars containing interstate freight within the yards. The record does not disclose the extent of plaintiff in error's yards, but the statement is made by counsel in one of the briefs, and it stands uncontradicted, that the yards were two or three miles in length. Stockton was injured in some manner between a transfer cut of cars in the yards and a freight train which was entering the yards. The head brakeman of the incoming train testified that he was riding on the engine of his train as it came in from the north; that he saw a switch engine with a transfer cut of cars coming from the south on an adjoining track, and that Stockton was hanging on the side of one of the cars in that cut; that as the incoming train approached Morton street Stockton let go of the side of the car on which he was hanging, and as he stepped to the ground the pilot beam of the engine of that train hit him, knocking him against the transfer cut, and these cars knocked him back against the step of the engine. The record is silent as to whether the transfer cut of cars or the incoming freight train carried local or interstate freight.

In its contention that Stockton was engaged in interstate commerce at the time of the accident, plaintiff in error relies principally upon Pedersen v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Co., 229 U. S. 146, 33 Sup. Ct. 648, 57 L. Ed. 1125, Ann. Cas. 1914C, 153. In that case it was said that there can be no doubt that a right of recovery under the federal act arises only where the injury is suffered while the employé is employed by the carrier in such commerce, and that ‘the true test always is: Is the work in question a part of the interstate commerce in which the carrier is engaged?’ This is the test laid down in all the cases dealing...