Chicago Co v. United States

• Citation: 62 L.Ed. 1066,38 S.Ct. 442,247 U.S. 197
• Decision Date: 20 May 1918
• Docket Number: No. 640,640
• Parties: CHICAGO & A. R. CO. v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

247 U.S. 197

38 S.Ct. 442

62 L.Ed. 1066

CHICAGO & A. R. CO.

v UNITED STATES.

No. 640.

Submitted April 18, 1918.

Decided May 20, 1918.

Messrs. Silas H. Strawn, of Chicago, Ill., and William L. Patton, of Springfield, Ill., for petitioner.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Frierson, for the United States.

Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Following its decisions in Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co. v. United States, 226 Fed. 27, 141 C. C. A. 135, and Chicago & Northwestern Ry. Co. v. United States, 226 Fed. 30, 141 C. C. A. 138, the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judgment of the District Court against plaintiff in error for one hundred dollars, penalty for violating the Hours of Service Act (chapter 2939, 34 Stat. 1415) by permitting a switch tender to remain on duty more than nine hours.

Section 2 of the act declares it unlawful for any interstate carrier by railroad to require or permit an employe 'actually engaged in or connected with the movement of any train' to remain on duty longer than sixteen consecutive hours:

'Provided, That no operator, train dispatcher, or other employe who by the use of the telegraph or telephone dispatches, reports, transmits, receives, or delivers orders pertaining to or affecting train movements shall be required or permitted to e or remain on duty for a longer period than nine hours in any twenty-four hour period in all towers, offices, places, and stations continuously operated night and day, nor for a longer period than thirteen hours in all towers, offices, places, and stations operated only during the daytime, except in case of emergency, when the employes named in this proviso may be permitted to be and remain on duty for four additional hours in a twenty-four hour period on not exceeding three days in any week.'

The cause was tried upon an agreed statement of facts, a jury being waived.

Plaintiff in error's 'Yard' at Bloomington, Illinois, is seven and three-fourths miles long. During April, 1915, it maintained therein three switch shanties located upon its double track main line, one five hundred feet, another eleven hundred feet and the third a mile north or its passenger station. Trains operated over this portion of the line are under control of the yardmaster and subject to a rule which provides: 'All trains will reduce speed on passing through yard limits and proceed only after the way is seen or known to be clear.' Each of these shanties was continuously operated night and day by two men, alternately on duty therein for twelve hours during every twenty-four.

'All of the work regularly and generally required of said employes, as well as that required on the days mentioned in said declaration, was in connection with the use of certain switches and telephones, which said work pertained to and affected...