Boston v. Armburg 24 25, 1932

• Citation: 52 S.Ct. 336,285 U.S. 234,76 L.Ed. 729
• Decision Date: 14 March 1932
• Docket Number: No. 477,477
• Parties: BOSTON & M. R. R. v. ARMBURG. Argued Feb. 24-25, 1932
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

285 U.S. 234

52 S.Ct. 336

76 L.Ed. 729

BOSTON & M. R. R.

v ARMBURG.

No. 477.

Argued Feb. 24-25, 1932.

Decided March 14, 1932.

[Syllabus from 235 intentionally omitted] Mr. Philip N. Jones, of Boston, Mass., for petitioner.

Mr. Clarence W. Rowley, of Boston, Mass., for respondent.

Mr. Justice STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case is here on certiorari, 284 U. S. 609, 52 S. Ct. 44, 76 L. Ed. —, to review a judgment of the municipal court of Boston, entered on rescript of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, holding that the Massachusetts Workmen's Compensation Act does not impose an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce. 177 N. E. 665.

The suit was brought by respondent to recover for personal injuries while in the employ of petitioner, an interstate rail carrier, engaged both in intrastate and interstate commerce. At the time of his injury, he was engaged exclusively in intrastate commerce. The railroad company interposed as defenses that the injury was due solely to the negligence of a fellow servant, and that respondent had assumed the risks of such negligence. Upon the trial by the court without a jury, respondent invoked the provisions of the Massachusetts Workmen's Compensation Act, § 66, c. 152, Mass. General Laws, providing that an employer not electing to comply with that act by effecting the prescribed insurance for the benefit of his employees, as petitioner had failed to do, may not interpose these defenses in an action brought by an employee to recover for injuries sustained in the course of his employment. Rulings requested by the petitioner that the act did not apply to petitioner, and, if it did, that the provisions invoked constituted an unconstitutional burden on commerce, were denied. The correctness of these rulings was reviewed and upheld by the Supreme Judicial Court, after which, following the Massachusetts practice, judgment was entered accordingly by the municipal court.

It is the contention of the petitioner that the insurance provisions of the Massachusetts act, if applied to an interstate carrier, impose an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce, and as section 66, denying to employers certain common-law defenses, in effect penalizes failure to comply with the insurance provisions, and is inseparable from them, the constitutionality of the section is conditioned upon that of the insurance requirements, and it must be deemed unconstitutional as applied to petitioner. See Williams v. Standard Oil Co., 278 U. S. 235, 49 S. Ct. 115, 73 L. Ed. 287, 60 A. L. R. 596; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 1, 30 S. Ct. 190, 54 L. Ed. 355; Frost & Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Commission, 271 U. S. 583, 46 S. Ct. 605, 70 L. Ed. 1101, 47 A. L. R. 457.

The act, in terms section 1(4), is made broadly applicable to employees 'except masters of and seamen on vessels engaged in interstate or foreign commerce,' and the state court held in this case that it is applicable to the employees of interstate carriers engaged in intrastate commerce. But, construing the act, it ruled that, as by implication all statutes of the state are intended to operate only upon a subject within the jurisdiction of the Legislature enacting them, this statute is not to be deemed to be applicable to employees whose rights of recovery for injuries in the course of their employment in interstate commerce are governed by the Federal Employers' Liability Act (45 USCA §§ 51-59). The Court said (page 669 of 177 N. E.):

'* * * The act does not require * * * that an employer must insure branches or departments or kinds of business which for any reason are not within the jurisdiction of the general court and thus necessarily outside the scope of the act. An employer, conducting some business within the jurisdiction of the general court and other business outside that jurisdiction, may insure under the act with respect to his employees in the part of his business within that jurisdiction and secure with respect to them all the benefits of the act unaffected by the circumstance that he continues to conduct the part of his business outside that jurisdiction without such insurance; and he may continue to conduct this latter part of his business under the principles of legal obligation governing it, free from any effect flowing from insurance under the act as to the other part of his business conducted within the jurisdiction of the general court.'

Thus construed, the act does not on its face impose any burden on interstate commerce.

The enactment of workmen's compensation acts is within the legislative power of the state, Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219, 238, 239, 37 S. Ct. 260, 61 L. Ed. 685, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 642; Madera Sugar Pine Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 262 U. S. 499, 501, 502, 43 S. Ct. 604, 67 L. Ed. 1091, which includes the power to do away with the fellow servant and assumption of risk rules, New York Central R. Co. v. White, 243 U. S. 188, 200, 37 S. Ct. 247, 61 L. Ed. 667, L. R. A 1917D, 1, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 629; Hawkins v. Bleakly, 243 U. S. 210, 213, 37 S. Ct. 255, 61 L. Ed. 678, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 637; Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205, 8 S. Ct. 1161, 32 L. Ed. 107; Minnesota Iron Co. v. Kline, 199 U. S. 593, 26 S. Ct. 159, 50 L. Ed. 322. The interstate commerce clause did not withdraw from the states the power to legislate with respect to their local concerns, even though such legislation may indirectly and incidentally affect interstate commerce and persons engaged in it. Sherlock v. Alling, 93 U. S. 99, 103, 23 L. Ed. 819; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 1, 26, 30 S. Ct. 190, 54 L. Ed. 355; Interstate Busses Corp. v. Holyoke St. Ry. Co., 273 U. S. 45, 52, 47 S. Ct. 298, 71 L. Ed. 530; Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul R. Co. v. Solan, 169 U. S. 133, 137, 138, 18 S. Ct. 289, 42 L. Ed. 688.

Although by the Federal Employers' Liability Act (45 USCA §§ 51-59) the regulatory power of the national government over interstate commerce has been...