Cudahy Packing Co of Nebraska v. Parramore, 107

• Decision Date: 10 December 1923
• Docket Number: No. 107,107
• Parties: CUDAHY PACKING CO. OF NEBRASKA v. PARRAMORE et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

263 U.S. 418

44 S.Ct. 153

68 L.Ed. 366

CUDAHY PACKING CO. OF NEBRASKA

v PARRAMORE et al.

No. 107.

Argued Nov. 14, 1923.

Decided Dec. 10, 1923.

Mr. Geo. T. Buckingham, of Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 418-420 intentionally omitted] Messrs. J. Robert Robinson and William A. Hilton, both of Salt Lake City, Utah, for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case arises under the provisions of the Utah Workmen's Compensation Act, which provides for the payment of compensation for personal injury or death of an employee by accident 'arising out of, or in the course of his employment.' Compiled Laws Utah 1917, § 3113, and amendment by Laws Utah 1919, c. 63.

The Cudahy Packing Company, on August 9, 1921, and prior thereto, owned and operated a meat-packing plant at a point about six miles north of Salt Lake City. Its employees generally resided in that city and in villages located north and south of the plant, only a few living in the immediate vicinity thereof.

In going to and form the plant the workmen proceeded along a main highway running north and south and passing the plant at a distance of about half a mile to the east. From this point a public road runs west to and beyond the plant, crossed, before reaching the plant, by three lines of railroad, one of which, the Rio Grande Western, lies immediately adjacent to, and from which switches lead directly into, the plant. The only practicable way of ingress and egress for employees was along this road and across these railroad tracks, and that was the way customarily used. Joseph Parramore was, and for a considerable time had been, employed at the plant at a weekly salary as a stationary engineer. He lived at Salt Lake City. On the morning of August 9, 1921, he rode to the plant in the automobile of another employee, for the purpose of going to work. The automobile crossed over two of the railroad tracks and when upon that of the Rio Grande was struck by an engine and Parramore was instantly killed. This happened about seven minutes before the time when his service as an engineer was to begin. Upon these facts the Utah Industrial Commission awarded compensation to Parramore's dependents. The Supreme Court of the state, upon a review, affirmed the award and held that the accident was one within the terms of the statute. 60 Utah, 161, 207 Pac. 148.

By this construction and application of the statute we are bound and the case must be considered as though the statute had, in specific terms, provided for liability upon the precise facts hereinbefore recited. Ward v. Krinsky, 259 U. S. 503, 510, 42 Sup. Ct. 529, 66 L. Ed. 1033. The question saved in the state court and presented here is whether the statute, as thus construed and applied, is valid under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Defendants in error have submitted a motion to dismiss the writ of error on the ground that no federal question in involved, but it is clearly without substance, and is overruled.

That the statute is constitutional upon its face is established by previous decisions of this court (New York Central R. Co. v. White, 243 U. S. 188, 37 Sup. Ct. 247, 61 L. Ed. 667, L. R. A. 1917D, 1, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 629; Hawkins v. Bleakly, 243 U. S. 210, 37 Sup. Ct. 255, 61 L. Ed. 678, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 637; Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219, 37 Sup. Ct. 260, 61 L. Ed. 685, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 642; Arizona Copper Co. v. Hammer, 250 U. S. 400, 39 Sup. Ct. 553, 63 L. Ed. 1058, 6 A. L. R. 1537; Madera Co. v. Industrial Comm., 262 U. S. 499, 43 Sup. Ct. 604, 67 L. Ed. 1091), and the only inquiry we need make is whether it is constitutional as applied and enforced in respect of the facts of the instant case. See Dahnke-Walker Milling Co. v. Bondurant, 257 U. S. 282, 288, 289, 42 Sup. Ct. 106, 66 L. Ed. 239. It is settled by the decisions of this court and by an overwhelming array of state decisions, that such statutes are not open to constitutional objection because they abrogate common-law defenses or impose liability without fault. But the contention here, shortly stated, is that the accident was one which occurred off the premises of the employer on a public road, outside the hours of employment and while the employee was not engaged in any business of the employer that it was not the result of any industrial risk but arose from a common peril to which the public generally was exposed; and that consequently liability is imposed arbitrarily and capriciously. It may be assumed that where an accident is in no manner related to the employment, an attempt to make the employer liable would be so clearly unreasonable and arbitrary as to subject it to the ban of the Constitution; but where the accident has any such relation we should be cautious about declaring a state statute creating liability against the employer invalid upon that ground. The modern development and growth of industry, with the consequent changes in the relations of employer and employee, have been so profound in character and degree as to take away, in large measure, the applicability of the doctrines upon which rest the common-law liability of the master for personal injuries to a servant, leaving of necessity a field of debatable ground where a good deal must be conceded in favor of forms of legislation, calculated to establish new bases of liability more in harmony with these changed conditions. Workmen's Compensation legislation rests upon the idea of status, nor upon that of implied contract; that is, upon the conception that the injured workman is entitled to compensation for an injury sustained in the service of an industry to whose operations he contributes his work as the owner contributes his capital—the one for the sake of the wages and the other for the sake of the profits. The liability is based, not upon any act or omission of the employer, but upon the existence of the relationship which the employee bears to the employment because of and in the course of which he has been injured. And this is not to impose liability upon one person for an injury sustained by another with which the former has no connection; but it is to say that it is enough if there be a causal connection between the injury and the business in which he employes the latter—a connection substantially contributory though it need not be the sole or proximate cause. Legislation which imposes liability for an injury thus related to the employment, among...