Chicago, Burlington Quincy Railroad Company v. Margaret Harrington

• Decision Date: 01 May 1916
• Docket Number: No. 853,853
• Parties: CHICAGO, BURLINGTON, & QUINCY RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. MARGARET HARRINGTON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

241 U.S. 177

36 S.Ct. 517

60 L.Ed. 941

CHICAGO, BURLINGTON, & QUINCY RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v MARGARET HARRINGTON.

No. 853.

Submitted April 17, 1916.

Decided May 1, 1916.

Messrs. O. M. Spencer, William Warner, Oliver H. Dean, H. M. Langworthy, and William D. McLeod for plaintiff in error.

Mr. J. G. L. Harvey for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Hughes delivered the opinion of the court:

Margaret Harrington brought this action to recover damages for the death of her husband, Patrick Harrington, a switchman employed by the plaintiff in error. She obtained judgment under the state law, the plaintiff in error contending unsuccessfully that the decedent was engaged in interstate commerce and that the case was governed by the Federal employers' liability act. 180 S. W. 443. The state court said, in its statement of facts:

'Defendant owns and operates a system of railroads covering this and a number of other western states and is a common carrier of both interstate and intrastate traffic. Its terminal yards at Kansas City are in Missouri and are an important center for the handling of both kinds of business originating upon and confined to defendant's lines, as well as for the interchange of business with other interstate railroads. Locomotives and cars used in both kinds of traffic are received, sent out, cared for, and repaired in the yards. The switching crew of which Harrington was a member did not work outside of this state, and was engaged, at the time of his death, in switching coal belonging to defendant, and which had been standing on a storage track for some time, to the coal shed, where it was to be placed in bins or chutes and supplied, as needed, to locomotives of all classes, some of which were engaged or about to be engaged in interstate and others in intrastate traffic. It may be conceded, as argued by defendant, that none of its locomotives or cars was set apart for service only in intrastate commerce. Defendant operated local trains from Kansas City to terminal points in this state which carried only intrastate commerce, but the locomotives and cars of such trains were subject to be diverted to other trains engaged in interstate commerce.'

The plaintiff in error takes exception to the statement in part, asserting that there was no evidence that any of the locomotives, which were supplied with fuel from the coal chutes, were engaged exclusively in intrastate commerce, or that any of the defendant's trains within the state were engaged exclusively in that...