Bucher v. Cheshire Co
| Decision Date | 19 March 1888 |
| Citation | 8 S.Ct. 974,31 L.Ed. 795,125 U.S. 555 |
| Parties | BUCHER v. CHESHIRE R. CO. et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
[Statement of Case from pages 556-566 intentionally omitted]
A. A. Ranney, for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 566-576 intentionally omitted]
Chas. A. Welch, for defendants in error.
This is a writ of error to the circuit court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts. The plaintiff in error was plaintiff in that court, and sought to recover of the defendants for injuries which he sustained by reason of their negligence while traveling upon their roads. The court on the trial substantially instructed the jury that the
plaintiff could not recover because the injury complained of occurred while he was traveling upon the Sabbath day, in violation of the law of the state of Massachusetts. A suit between the same parties in regard to the same transaction had been brought in the supreme court of that state, in which, on a trial before a jury, the plaintiff obtained a verdict. This was carried to the court in bank, and was there reversed and sent back for a new trial. The plaintiff then became nonsuit in the state court and brought the present action in the circuit court of the United States.
It is important to inquire what was at issue upon the trial in the state court. There the defendant set up the law of the state found in Gen. St. c. 84, § 2, which is as follows: 'Whoever travels on the Lord's day, except for necessity or charity, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding ten dollars;' and insisted that the plaintiff, being in the act of violating that law at the time the injury occurred, could not recover. On the 15th of May, 1877, after the plaintiff was injured, the legislature of Massachusetts passed a statute declaring that this prohibition against traveling on the Lord's day should not constitute a defense to an action against a common carrier of passengers for any tort or injury suffered by the person so traveling. St. Mass. 1877, c. 232. The supreme court of that state had decided previous to this, in Stanton v. Railroad Co., 14 Allen, 485, a similar case, that the plaintiff, being engaged in a violation of law, without which he would not have received the injury sued for, could not obtain redress in a court of justice. Also, in Bosworth v. Swansey, 10 Metc. 363, and in Jones v. Andover, 10 Allen, 18. In the trial of the case now under consideration, before the jury in the state court, the plaintiff does not seem to have controverted the general doctrine thus declared, but insisted that the present case did not come within the statute, because—First, the act of May 15, 1877, had declared that traveling on Sunday should no longer be a defense to actions for injuries suffered by reason of the negligence of carriers of passengers, although this statute was passed after the accident occurred upon which the right of action was founded; and
second, that at the time he was injured he was, within the meaning of the statute, traveling upon an errand of charity or necessity, specially excepted from its provisions. The court below sustained both of these propositions of the plaintiff, and the court in bank reversed the trial court upon both of them. It held that the act of May 15, 1877, did not govern a case where the injury had occurred before its passage; that it was not retroactive; and also held that the facts set out in the bill of exceptions did not show that the plaintiff was traveling at the time of the accident either from necessity or for charity. It may be as well to state here that the facts found in the bill of exceptions relating to this latter question, as it was presented before the supreme court of Massachusetts, were identical with those appearing in the bill of exceptions of the case now before us, being in both cases the plaintiff's own statement of his reasons for traveling on that day.
Upon the trial in the circuit court of the United States the judge was requested by the plaintiff to charge the jury that the circumstances detailed in the testimony of plaintiff and found in the bill of exceptions concerning the illness of his sister in Minnesota, of which he had received knowledge by letter, and had replied that he would meet her in Chicago at a certain time, and that, having been delayed by accidental circumstances, the travel on Sunday, when he was injured, became necessary to enable him to fulfill that promise, were sufficient to be submitted to the jury in order that they might pass upon the question of whether or not this act of traveling on the Lord's day was a work of necessity or charity. This the court declined to do, saying that the same question having been submitted to the jury in the trial in the state court, and having been passed upon by the supreme court of the state, he did not consider that there was evidence sufficient to go to the jury upon that subject. This is one of the assignments of error now before us, and upon this point we are of opinion that the court below ruled correctly. It is not a matter of estoppel which bound the parties in the court below, because there was no judgment entered in the case in which the ruling of the state court was
made, and we do not place the correctness of the determination of the circuit court in refusing to permit this question to go to the jury upon the ground that it was a point decided between the parties, and therefore res judicata as between them and the present action, but upon the ground that the supreme court of the state in its decision had given such a construction to the meaning of the words 'charity' and 'necessity' in the statute as to clearly show that the evidence offered upon that subject was not sufficient to prove that the plaintiff was traveling for either of those purposes. The court in its opinion, which is reported in Bucher v. Railroad co., 131 Mass. 156, said: After citing other cases which had been decided in that court, it was further said: Taking, therefore, this construction of the language of the statute, as well as prior decisions to the same purport in which we think we are bound to follow the supreme court of the state, we agree that the record in this case as in that does not furnish evidence which should have gone to the jury upon that branch of the subject.
The other assignment of error, in regard to the effect of traveling on the Lord's day in violation of the statute of Massachusetts, submitted as a defense to what would otherwise be a liability of the railroad for the negligence of its servants, presents the matter in a somewhat different aspect. It is not easy to see that there was anything n the case as it arose in the circuit court which required a construction of the meaning of that statute, after eliminating what has just been suggested as to the signification of the words 'necessity' or 'charity.' The remainder is a short prohibition against traveling upon the Lord's day, and provides for the imposition of a penalty for so doing. This is very plain; it admits of no doubt as to its meaning, and its validity has never been controverted. When, therefore, the supreme court of Massachusetts, in a long line of decisions, has held that the violation of this statute may be set up as a defense to a liability growing out of the negligence of a railroad company in carrying passengers upon its road, it must have been on some other ground than that to be found in the expressions used in the statute itself. There is no such provision in it, and there is no necessary inference to be drawn from its language that it was intended to control the relations between the passenger and the carrier, or to modify the obligations of the one to the other. The language of the court in Stanton v. Railroad Co., already cited, is that 'because the plaintiff was engaged in the violation of law, without which he would not have received the injury sued for, he cannot obtain redress in a court of justice.' This principle would seem to be as applicable to a man engaged in any other transaction forbidden by law as to that of violating the Sabbath. Whether the doctrine thus laid down is a sound one, and whether, if it be not sound as it commends itself to our judgment, we should follow it as being supported by the decisions of the supreme court of Massachusetts in numerous instances, presents in this case the only serious question for our consideration. Hamilton v. City of Boston, 14 Allen, 475; Bosworth v. Swansey, 10 Metc. 363; Jones v. Andover, 10 Allen, 18; Day v.
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