Bountiful Brick Co v. Giles, 193

• Decision Date: 20 February 1928
• Docket Number: No. 193,193
• Citation: 276 U.S. 154,48 S.Ct. 221,66 A.L.R. 1402,72 L.Ed. 507
• Parties: BOUNTIFUL BRICK CO. et al. v. GILES et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

276 U.S. 154

48 S.Ct. 221

72 L.Ed. 507

BOUNTIFUL BRICK CO. et al.

v GILES et al.

No. 193.

Argued Jan. 18, 1928.

Decided Feb. 20, 1928.

Mr. Henry D. Moyle, of Salt Lake City, Utah, for plaintiffs in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 154-156 intentionally omitted] Messrs. S. B. Horovitz, of Boston, Mass., and Harvey H. Cluff, of Salt Lake City, Utah, for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question for determination is whether the Utah Workmen's Compensation Act (Comp. Laws Utah 1917, § 3113, and subsequent amendments), which provides compensation for personal injury or death of an employee by accident 'arising out of and in the course of his employment,' as it was construed and applied to the facts by the court below, contravenes the due process of law clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

It is difficult to make a satisfactory statement of the facts from the evidence because of the absence from the record of a plat of the premises which was used before the state industrial commission and referred to by the witnesses, particular places, position of railway tracks, etc., being pointed out by references to the plat. But considering the testimony in connection with the findings of the industrial commission and of the court below, the following is a fair summary:

On June 17, 1925, Nephi Giles, an employee of the brick company, while crossing the tracks of the Bamberger Electric Railroad Company on his way to work, was struck by a train and killed. The yard of the brick company is on the west side of the railway tracks immediately adjacent thereto, and connected therewith, as the commission found, by a spur. The railroad tracks run north and south. Giles resided-and the evidence indicates that the employees generally resided-easterly from the railway tracks. In going from their homes to the brickyard, it was impossible to avoid crossing the railway tracks. There was a public crossing, called the Burns road, about 200 yards south of the brickyard. The right of way of the railway company opposite the yard was fenced on both sides. Giles, as well as other employees, in going to work, sometimes followed the Burns road to the railway crossing, and then went north along the railway tracks to the northeast corner of the brickyard, and thence through a gap in the fence to the north entrance of the yard; and sometimes employees, including Giles, entered the right of way through the east fence at other points north of the Burns road, and thence crossed the tracks more or less directly to the gap. This varied practice was well known to the company and carried on without objection on its part. It was possible to reach the brickyard by following the Burns road across the railway tracks and for a distance west, and thence northerly and easterly to the west entrance of the yard, but this way was long, circuitous and inconvenient, and, so far as the evidence shows, not used. A deep open ditch lying north of the road prevented access to the south end of the brickyard.

The manager of the company testified that he knew of the many ways by which the employees crossed the tracks; that he had seen Giles coming in all ways; that he cautioned Giles a number of times to be careful, but did not instruct him or any of the employees to discontinue these methods of crossing.

On the occasion of the accident which resulted in his death, Giles entered the Bamberger right of way through the wire fence on the east side at a point nearly opposite the gap in the west fence. He was struck while proceeding across the tracks to this point of exit.

From these facts the industrial commission...