Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Schendel

• Decision Date: 28 August 1923
• Docket Number: 6356.
• Citation: 292 F. 326
• Parties: CHICAGO, M. & ST. P. RY. CO. v. SCHENDEL.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

292 F. 326

CHICAGO, M. & ST. P. RY. CO. v. SCHENDEL.

No. 6356.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

August 28, 1923

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of Minnesota; John F. McGee, Judge.

John N Hughes, of Des Moines, Iowa, and C.O. Newcomb, of Minneapolis, Minn. (F.W. Root and A.C. Erdall, both of Minneapolis, Minn., and Hughes, Taylor & O'Brien, of Des Moines, Iowa, on the brief), for appellant.

Ernest A. Michel, of Minneapolis, Minn. (Tom Davis, of Marshall Minn., on the brief), for appellee.

Before LEWIS and KENYON, Circuit Judges, and TRIEBER, District Judge.

KENYON Circuit Judge.

The following state of facts produces this controversy: Appellee A.D. Schendel, as special administrator of the estate of Andrew J. Baker, brought suit in the district court of Yellow Medicine county, Minn., against appellant, for damages arising from the death of Andrew J. Baker, a switchman in the employ of appellant, at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, November 11, 1922. Appellant then instituted suit in the district court of Linn county, Iowa, against the widow of decedent and all the principal witnesses in said suit in Yellow Medicine county, Minn., and secured a temporary injunction enjoining said parties from taking any steps in aid of or testifying in said case, or any other case brought to recover damages for the death of said Baker, except in the United States District Court, Cedar Rapids Division, Northern District of Iowa, or the state court in and for Linn county, Iowa. Thereafter, on February 6, 1923, the case in Yellow Medicine county, Minn., was dismissed, and a case instituted in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, Fourth Division, making practically the same claim for damages as in the Yellow Medicine county suit. Attempts were made to take the depositions of the witnesses in Iowa who had been enjoined by the district court of Linn county, Iowa, and said witnesses refused to testify or to give depositions. Appellee then, by ancillary proceedings, sought an order of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, Fourth Division, to restrain appellant from interfering with the jurisdiction of the United States District Court, or with the prosecution of the suit by plaintiff, and asking that appellant be compelled to take necessary steps to dismiss the proceedings pending in the district court of Linn county, Iowa, wherein the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, appellant herein, was plaintiff, and Mrs. Baker and others were defendants. The United States District Court of Minnesota ordered that a temporary injunction issue restraining appellant from interfering with the plaintiff in carrying on the action, and restraining appellant from taking any proceedings in the action pending in the district court of Linn county, Iowa, wherein the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company was plaintiff and Mrs. Goldie Baker and others were defendants, except dismissal proceedings; also by said order appellant was directed to dismiss the proceedings in the district court of Linn county, Iowa. From this order the appeal is taken. It will be perceived that questions of grave and far-reaching importance are involved.

Appellant claims that the district court of Linn county, Iowa, acted within its jurisdiction, and in so acting was carrying out the public policy of the state of Iowa. The Thirty-Seventh General Assembly of Iowa passed the following statute (chapter 293, Acts 37th General Assembly of the state of Iowa): "An act to prohibit the so-called practice of ambulance chasing for the purpose of inducing residents of this state to bring suits outside this state on personal injury or death claims arising within this state, and to prohibit the solicitation of such claims and the prosecution of suits thereon in foreign jurisdictions.

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Iowa:

"Section 1. Soliciting Claims. It shall be unlawful for any person, with the intent, or for the purpose of instituting a suit thereon outside of this state, to seek or solicit the business of collecting any claim for damages for personal injuries sustained within this state or for death resulting therefrom, or in any way to promote the prosecution of a suit brought outside of this state for such damages, or to do any act or thing in furtherance thereof, in cases where such right of action rests in a resident of this state, or his legal representative, and is against a person, copartnership or corporation subject to personal service within this state."

The purpose of this act was evidently to curtail the operations of ambulance chasers, who have done much to discredit the legitimate practice of the law. In two cases, viz. Wabash Railway Co. v. Peterson, 187 Iowa, 1331, 175 N.W. 523, and In re Spoo's Estate, 191 Iowa, 1134, 183 N.W. 580, the Supreme Court of Iowa has construed this act, and held that an Iowa citizen can be restrained from bringing suit for personal injury sustained within the state--or his estate, if death resulted therefrom--in any other jurisdiction than the state of Iowa.

The order made by the district court of Linn county, Iowa, goes further even than the public policy of the state. After enjoining defendants in that case from aiding in the prosecution of the cause of action pending in the district court of Yellow Medicine county, Minn., by an all-embracing phrase, it says:

" * * * And from giving testimony, either in writing or oral, in any place in support of a cause of action brought to recover damages on account of the death of said Andrew J. Baker, unless said cause of action is instituted in the district court of Linn county, Iowa, or the United States District Court, Northern District, Cedar Rapids Division, and specifically enjoined and restrained from continuing or aiding in any way enforcing the cause of action now instituted and pending in the said district court of Yellow Medicine county, Minnesota."

Under this order the Iowa citizens enjoined by the district court of Linn county, including the widow of decedent Baker, could not testify in the United States District Court at any place in the Northern District of Iowa, except in the Cedar Rapids Division, or at any place where United States District Court is held in the Southern District of Iowa. The only suits in which the witnesses could testify would be those brought in the United States District Court, in the Cedar Rapids Division of the Northern District of Iowa, or the district court of Linn county, Iowa, and if the witnesses could testify in no other places no suit could be carried on elsewhere. This is limiting the Iowa policy to a more restricted sphere than the Legislature could possibly have anticipated in passing the law.

Outside of this order, however, we consider the important question involved of the conflict of the federal statute and the public policy of the state as expressed in the legislative enactment, before referred to, as construed in the two Iowa cases cited. The right of appellee to bring suit is given by the federal Employers' Liability Law, section 6 of which, as amended by the Act of April 5, 1910 (Comp.St. § 8662), is as follows:

"Sec. 8662. Actions; Limitation; Concurrent Jurisdiction of Courts; Removal of Case in State Court.--No action shall be maintained under this act unless commenced within two years from the day the cause of action accrued.

"Under this act an action may be brought in a [Circuit Court] of the United States, in the district of the residence of the defendant, or in which the cause of action arose, or in which the defendant shall be doing business at the time of commencing such action. The jurisdiction of the courts of the United States under this act shall be concurrent with that of the courts of the several States, and no case arising under this act and brought in any state court of competent jurisdiction shall be removed to any court of the United States. (April 22, 1908, c. 149, § 6, 35 Stat. 66, amended April 5, 1910, c. 143, § 1, 36 Stat. 291.)

"Text in brackets superseded by sections 1266-1268."

This reference to sections 1266 and 1268 of the Compiled Statutes is in respect to transferring the power of a Circuit Court to the District Court. Under this statute the right is given to bring action within its purview for personal injuries or death resulting therefrom in the district of defendant's residence or the district in which the defendant was doing business at the time the action was commenced.

The action for personal injury under this act is a transitory one, and can be brought in any court having jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the parties. Dennick v. Railroad Co., 103 U.S. 11, 17, 26 L.Ed. 439; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Co. v. Sowers, 213 U.S. 55, 29 Sup.Ct. 397, 53 L.Ed. 695. We therefore have a situation presented where Congress has given a right by federal enactment, and a state limits or destroys that right through an injunction of one of its courts based on a state statute, on the theory that the exercise of the right would interfere with the public policy of the state.

This public policy compels the citizen to give up a right granted by federal law. It is difficult to take seriously in this day of our national history the proposition that a state can be permitted so to destroy the power of a federal court to carry on the work given to it under the acts of Congress. If witnesses, by order of a state court, can be prevented from testifying in a federal court, then the federal court is a mere shell, to be crushed by the pressure of state court injunction. If a state can compel a citizen to give up one federal right as a prerequisite to bringing suit in a federal...