Chicago & E.I.P. Co. v. Rouse

• Decision Date: 17 February 1899
• Citation: 52 N.E. 951,178 Ill. 132
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: CHICAGO & E. I. P. CO. v. ROUSE.

178 Ill. 132

52 N.E. 951

CHICAGO & E. I. P. CO.

v.ROUSE.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 17, 1899.

Appeal from appellate court, Third district.

Action by R. A. Rouse, administrator of George W. Brewer, deceased, against the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Company. From a judgment of the appellate court affirming a judgment for plaintiff (78 Ill. App. 286), defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Will H. Lyford, H. M. Steely, and Albert M. Cross, for appellant.

Tilton & Cundiff, for appellee.

BOGGS, J.

George W. Brewer, deceased, appellee's intestate, during his lifetime and at the time of his death, was a resident of Vermilion county, in this state. The appellant, a corporation organized under the laws of this state, was engaged in operating its trains over its own lines and leased lines of railway in the states of Illinois and Indiana. Said intestate was employed as a fireman on one of appellant's locomotive engines, and, while engaged in the discharge of his duty in that capacity on an engine drawing a passenger train along the line of appellant's road in the state of Indiana, was killed by a collision between the said engine and train upon which he was employed, and another engine, drawing a freight train, controlled and operated by other servants of the appellant company upon its said line of road in the state of Indiana. This was an action on the case, commenced in the circuit court of Vermilion county, Ill., by the appellee, administrator of the said Brewer, to recover damages for the benefit of those entitled to receive distribution of the personal effects of the said deceased.

The declaration, in some of the counts, charged that the collision was occasioned by the negligence of the conductor of the freight train, and, in other counts, that the trains collided because of the negligence of the engineer of the freight train, and counted and predicated the right of recovery upon an alleged liability created by the statute of the state of Indiana in such cases, and set forth the statute of such state, and such statute was produced in evidence. Section 7083 of the Indiana statute (Burns' Rev. St. 1894, § 7083) provides that where the death of an employé of any railroad company or other corporation is caused by the negligence of any person in the employ or service of such corporation who has charge of any locomotive engine or train of cars upon any railroad, or by the negligence of any fellow servant engaged in the same common service in any of the several departments of such corporation, while the employe so killed is obeying or conforming to the orders of some superior having authority to direct at the time of such death, the railway company or other corporation operating such locomotive engine or train shall be liable to respond to the personal representatives of such deceased in damages in a sum not exceeding $10,000, to be distributed to the widow and children, if any, or next of kin, of the deceased, in the same manner as personal property of the deceased. A plea of not guilty was filed, and the cause submitted to and heard by a jury, who returned a verdict in favor of the appellee administrator in the sum of $5,000. The judgment was affirmed by the judgment of the appellate court for the Third district on appeal, and the appellant company has prosecuted a further appeal to this court.

The effect of the statute of Indiana is to abrogate the doctrine which, it seems to be conceded, would otherwise be applicable to the facts of this case,-that the appellant company, as employer, is not to be held liable for an injury, fatal or otherwise, to an employé which was occasioned by the negligence of a fellow servant of such employé. The principal question arising is whether this statute will be applied and the doctrine thereof enforced in an action instituted and maintained in the courts of this state, or whether the law as it exists in this state will govern and control. Actions not penal, but for pecuniary damages for torts or civil injuries to the person or property, are transitory, and, if actionable where committed, in general may be maintained in any jurisdiction in which the defendant can be legally served with process. We think it well settled that, without regard to the rule which may obtain as to a cause of action which accrued under the laws of a separate and distinct nation, a right of action which has accrued under the statute of a sister state of the Union will be enforced by the courts of another state of the Union, unless against good morals, natural justice, or the general interest of the citizens of the state in which the action is brought. Dicey, Confl. Laws, pp. 667-669, par. 1; Herrick v. Railway Co., 31 Minn. 11, 16 N. W. 413;Dennick v. Railroad Co., 103 U. S. 11; The Scotland, 105 U. S. 29; Railroad Co. v. Babcock, 154 U. S. 190, 14 Sup. Ct. 978;Higgins v. Railroad Co., 155 Mass. 176, 29 N. E. 534;Walsh v. Railroad Co., 160 Mass. 571, 36 N. E. 584;Burns v. Railroad Co., 113 Ind. 169, 15 N. E. 230;Morris v. Railway Co., 65 Iowa, 727, 23 N. W. 143;Leonard v. Navigation Co., 84 N. Y. 48; Railway Co. v. Lewis, 89 Tenn. 235, 14 S. W. 603;McLeod v. Railroad Co., 58 Vt. 726, 6 Atl. 648.

It is argued by counsel for appellant that an action cannot be maintained in this cause in our courts, for the reason, as alleged, that the laws of the two states are materially variant, it being, as counsel insist, against natural justice and the established public policy of this state to hold an employer liable for injuries inflicted upon an employé by a fellow servant. This position finds support in the opinion rendered by the supreme court of Wisconsin in Anderson v. Railway Co., 37 Wis. 321, and also in expressions employed in opinions rendered in cases in the courts of England. But such is not the prevailing doctrine in the courts of this country. The supreme court of the state of Minnesota, having before it the precise point in the case of Herrick v. Railway Co., 31 Minn. 11, 16 N. W. 413, gave forcible and clear expression of that which we conceive to be the correct doctrine. In that case the injury was...