Cravens v. Louisville & N.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1922
• Citation: 195 Ky. 257,242 S.W. 628
• Parties: CRAVENS v. LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO. HOAGLAND v. LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

242 S.W. 628

195 Ky. 257

CRAVENS v. LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO.

HOAGLAND v. LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

February 28, 1922

Rehearing Denied June 28, 1922.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Nelson County.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Bullitt County.

Separate actions by T. W. Cravens and by Bertha Hoagland against the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company. Judgments for defendants, and plaintiff appeals in each case, and defendant files cross-appeal in the second case. Judgment in the first case affirmed, and that in the second case reversed, on both original and cross-appeals.

Osso W Stanley and E. N. Fulton, both of Bardstown, and Charles Carroll, of Louisville, for plaintiff Cravens.

C. P Bradbury and T. C. Carroll, both of Shepherdsville, for plaintiff Hoagland.

John Kelley and John A. Fulton, both of Bardstown, B. D. Warfield of Louisville, and J. F. Combs, of Shepherdsville, for defendant.

CLAY J.

These two appeals involve similar questions, were argued together, and will be considered in one opinion.

The first-mentioned appeal grows out of a suit brought by T. W Cravens on January 17, 1919, against the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company to recover damages for the loss of the services of his wife, Eliza M. Cravens, who was severely injured in a collision that occurred at Shepherdsville on December 20, 1917. In addition to other defenses, the answer contained a paragraph pleading the one-year statute of limitations. The demurrer thereto was overruled, and, Cravens having declined to plead further, his petition was dismissed. On appeal the judgment was affirmed. Cravens v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 188 Ky. 579, 222 S.W. 930. After judgment was rendered below, and during the pendency of the appeal, Congress enacted the Transportation Act of February 28, 1920 (41 Stat. 456, c. 91) subsection (f), section 206, of which is as follows:

"The period of federal control shall not be computed as a part of the periods of limitations in actions against carriers or in claims for reparation to the Commission for causes of action arising prior to federal control."

On September 30, 1920, Cravens filed a petition for a new trial on the ground that the foregoing statute had the effect of suspending the state statute of limitations during federal control, and that his failure to rely thereon was due to accident or surprise which ordinary prudence could not have guarded against. He further alleged that the carrier had accepted the provisions of the act and had received certain benefits therefrom. A demurrer to the petition was sustained, and the petition was dismissed.

The second appeal grows out of a suit brought by Bertha Hoagland on November 27, 1920, against the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company to recover damages for the loss of the services and consortium of her husband, Thomas W. Hoagland, who was also injured in the collision that occurred at Shepherdsville on December 20, 1917. A general demurrer to the petition having been overruled, the company filed an answer in three paragraphs. The first paragraph contained a denial of the loss of services or consortium; the second, a plea of settlement; and the third, a plea of limitations. The court overruled a demurrer to the second and third paragraphs, and plaintiff having declined to plead further, an order was entered dismissing the petition. From that order plaintiff appeals, and from the order overruling the general demurrer to the petition the company prosecutes a cross-appeal.

The principal questions presented are: (1) Does subsection (f), section 206, supra, apply to actions in the state courts, and if so, is it valid? (2) Is it valid as to actions in the state courts where the bar of the state statute of limitations had already fallen? (3) What effect, if any, did it have on a prior judgment of a state court dismissing an action on the ground that it was barred by the state statute of limitations?

Counsel for the railroad company not only assign numerous reasons why these questions should be answered in the negative, but rely upon the recent case of Georgia Southern & F. Railway Co. v. Smiley, 151 Ga. 795, 108 S.E. 273, wherein the Supreme Court of Georgia held that the statute in question applied only to federal courts, and that, if it was intended to authorize the bringing of a suit in a state court after it was barred by the state statute, it was beyond the power of Congress to enact. It would render the solution of the questions much less difficult if we could take the same view of the statute, but we find ourselves unable to do so. There is nothing in the statute which either expressly or by necessary implication confines its application to actions in the federal courts. On the contrary, it purports to deal generally with actions against carriers for causes of action arising prior to federal control. Not only so, but we cannot believe that Congress intended to discriminate between the state and federal courts, or to offer a premium for bringing suits in the federal courts by providing that litigants should have a longer time to bring suits in those courts than in the state courts. We therefore conclude that the statute applies to actions in the state courts. Stewart v. Kahn, 11 Wall. 493, 20 L.Ed. 176; Mayfield v. Richards, 115 U.S. 137, 5 S.Ct. 1187, 29 L.Ed. 334.

This brings us to the consideration of the question whether the act is valid as applied to actions in the state courts. The war power of Congress is very broad and comprehensive. The means to be employed and the measures to be taken in carrying on the war rest in its discretion. That it had the power to confer on the President the authority to take control of the carriers and operate them during the period of the war for the purpose of facilitating the movement of troops and supplies is no longer disputed. Northern P. R. Co. v. North Dakota ex rel. Langer, 250 U.S. 135, 39 S.Ct. 502, 63 L.Ed. 897; Dakota Central Telegraph Co. v. South Dakota ex rel. Payne, 250 U.S. 163, 39 S.Ct. 507, 63 L.Ed. 910, 4 A.L.R. 1623. As an incident to that power it had the further power to define the rights, duties, obligations, and liabilities of such carriers during the period of federal control. It cannot be doubted that when control was first taken, and the carriers thus became the instrumentalities or agencies of the federal government, Congress had the power to provide that no action of any kind should be brought against such carriers in any court, state or federal, during the period of federal control.

That being true, and there being no prohibition in the federal Constitution against retrospective legislation of the kind in question, we perceive no reason why Congress could not provide as a war measure, and while the carriers were under federal control, that the period of federal control should not be computed as a part of the periods of limitations in suits against such carriers for causes of action arising prior to federal control. It is true that the statute in question differs materially from the Act of June 11, 1864 (13 Stat. 123), which was sustained in Stewart v. Kahn and Mayfield v. Richards, supra, and held to apply to actions in the state courts as well as in the federal courts, and which provided in substance that the time during which a person was beyond legal process by reason of resistance to the laws, or the interruption of judicial proceedings during the Civil War, should not be deemed as part of the time limited by law for the commencement of the action. As that act applied to actions of every kind between parties generally, where certain conditions existed, it may be that the presence of those conditions was regarded as essential to the exercise of the power. But we do not regard the absence of those conditions as fatal to the validity of the statute in question, for there were other conditions not present when the act of 1864 was enacted which were clearly sufficient to authorize its enactment. Congress did not attempt in its enactment to deal with the question of limitations as applied to actions and parties generally, but dealt only with actions against carriers under federal control and during the period of federal control. In thus legislating, it dealt with the subject at a time when its control was complete and its war power was undivided. That being true, its authority was paramount, with the necessary result that the statute in question superseded any state statute bearing on the question. Northern P. R. Co. v. North Dakota ex rel. Langer, 250 U.S. 135, 39 S.Ct. 502, 63 L.Ed. 897.

The next question to be determined is whether the act is valid as applied to a case where the bar of the state statute had already fallen. The case is not one for the recovery of real or personal property. In such a case the authorities are agreed that, where one's title to real or personal property has become perfected by an adverse holding for the requisite period of time, his title cannot be impaired by subsequent legislation. 17 R.C.L. § 17, p. 675. Whether or not the same rule applies to actions not involving the title to real or personal property is a question about which there is a great conflict of opinion. Were we to follow our own decisions, and perhaps the weight of authority, we would be inclined to answer the principal question in the negative, as we have held that, whether the cause of action arises ex contractu or ex delicto, the right to plead the statute of limitations becomes vested when the bar is complete and cannot be taken away by subsequent legislation. Lawrence v. City of Louisville, 96 Ky. 595, 29 S.W. 450, 16 Ky Law Rep. 672, 27 L.R.A. 560, 49 Am.St.Rep. 309. But the statute in question is an act of Congress, and its validity must be...