Cousins v. Illinois Central Railroad Co.

• Decision Date: 26 June 1914
• Docket Number: 18,603 - (146)
• Citation: 148 N.W. 58,126 Minn. 172
• Parties: CHARLES W. COUSINS v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

148 N.W. 58

126 Minn. 172

CHARLES W. COUSINS v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY

Nos. 18,603 - (146)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

June 26, 1914

Action in the district court for Ramsey county to recover $15,000 for personal injury received while in the employ of defendant. The answer denied that the injury was caused by any negligence on the part of defendant or its employees and alleged that the accident resulted from the negligence of plaintiff and that his negligence contributed to the accident. It also denied that at the time and place of the accident plaintiff was engaged in interstate commerce work. The case was tried before Brill, J., and a jury which returned a verdict of $2,000 in favor of plaintiff. Defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial was denied. From the judgment entered pursuant to the verdict, defendant appealed. Affirmed.

SYLLABUS

Interstate commerce -- Federal Employer's Liability Act.

Defendant is a common carrier by railroad engaged in interstate commerce. Plaintiff, an employee, was injured by the negligence of his fellow servants while engaged in wheeling a barrow of coal to heat the shop in which other employees were engaged in making repairs to cars that had been and were to be used in carrying interstate commerce. It is held:

Plaintiff at the time of his injury, was engaged in and employed by defendant in interstate commerce, and entitled to the benefits of the Federal Employer's Liability Act.

Butler & Mitchell, for appellant.

Samuel A. Anderson and A. S. Storey, for respondent.

OPINION

BUNN, J.

Plaintiff was a laborer employed by defendant in its yards and shops at Paducah, Kentucky. He brought this action to recover for personal injuries received while he was wheeling a barrow full of coal to one of the car repair shops. The coal was intended for use in heating stoves in a shop where employees of defendant were engaged in repairing cars. Four tracks entered this shop or shed, upon which tracks bad-order cars were placed and repaired. Defendant was engaged in interstate as well as intrastate commerce, and many if not all of the cars repaired in the shop were cars that moved only in interstate commerce. The trial court held as a matter of law that plaintiff was at the time of the accident engaged in interstate commerce within the meaning of the Federal Employer's Liability Act (Act April 22, 1908, c. 149, 35 St. 65 [U.S. Comp. St. Supp. 1911, p. 1322]) and therefore that he was entitled to recover damages in accordance with the provisions of that act, if the accident was caused by negligence on the part of his fellow servants. There was a verdict for plaintiff, and defendant appealed from the judgment entered on the verdict, after its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial had been denied.

The assignments of error present but a single question: Was plaintiff engaged in interstate commerce at the time he was injured? If he was, the judgment must stand; if not, it must be reversed.

The men in the shop were engaged in repairing cars that had been and were to be used in interstate commerce. Plaintiff, when he was injured, was wheeling coal to be used in heating the shop so that these men could do their work. The question is to be determined from the language of the Federal Act ^[1] and the Federal decisions construing it. The act makes a common carrier by railroad, while engaged in commerce between any of the several states, liable for the negligence of its employees to any person suffering injury, while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce. In Pedersen v Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R. Co. 229 U.S. 146, 33 S.Ct. 648, 57 L.Ed. 1125, the court said: "The true test always is: Is the work in question a part of the interstate commerce in which the carrier was engaged?" It was held that a man carrying bolts to be used in repairing a railroad bridge over which interstate commerce moved was employed in interstate commerce. The court found no merit in the point that plaintiff was not actually repairing the bridge when injured, but was merely carrying to the place where the work was to be done some of the materials to be used therein, saying: "It was necessary to the repair of the bridge that the materials be at hand, and the act of bringing them there was a part of the work. In other words it was a minor task which was essentially a part of the larger one, as is the case where an engineer takes his engine from the roundhouse to the track on which are the cars he is to haul in interstate commerce." The Pedersen case, the cases cited therein with approval, and the case of St. Louis, etc. Ry. Co. v. Seale...