Denton v. Yazoo Co

• Decision Date: 04 January 1931
• Docket Number: No. 242,242
• Citation: 52 S.Ct. 141,76 L.Ed. 310,284 U.S. 305
• Parties: DENTON v. YAZOO & M. V. R. CO. et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

284 U.S. 305

52 S.Ct. 141

76 L.Ed. 310

DENTON

v YAZOO & M. V. R. CO. et al.

No. 242.

Argued Dec. 11, 1931.

Decided Jan. 4, 1931.

Mr. John P. Bramhall, of Washington, D. C., for petitioner.

Mr. H. D. Minor, of Memphis, Tenn., for respondents.

[Argument of Counsel from page 306 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioner, a United States railway postal clerk, sustained an injury due to the alleged negligence of one Hunter, a porter in the general service of the two railroad companies named as respondents. Hunter was hired and paid by the Illinois Central Railroad Company. At the time of the injury, he was engaged in loading United States mail into a mail car, under the direction of a United States postal transfer clerk, and was not, as to that work, under the direction or control of either of the railroad companies.

The mail was being transported by the railroad companies under chapter 261, § 5, 39 Stat. 412, 429, U. S. C., title 39, § 541 (39 USCA § 541), which requires all railway common carriers to transport such mail 'in the manner, under the conditions, and with the service prescribed by the Postmaster General.' A regulation of the Postmaster General, adopted by authority of this statute, provides: 'Section 1293. * * * 2. Railroad companies shall furnish the men necessary to handle the mails, to load them into and receive them from the doors of railway post office cars, and to load and pile the mails in and unload them from storage and baggage cars, under the direction of the transfer clerk, or clerk in charge of the car, if one is on duty, except as provided in Section 1290. Mails intended for delivery to postal clerk shall never be placed in a postal car unless there is a clerk on duty to receive and care for them.'

Petitioner brought an action in a Mississippi state court of first instance, against the railroad companies and Hunter, to recover damages for the injury, joining the railroads upon the theory that, in performing the work of loading the mail, Hunter was their servant. A verdict against all of the defendants was returned by the jury, and a judgment thereon entered. The judgment, as to the railroad companies, was reversed by the state Supreme Court on the ground that what Hunter was doing at the time of his alleged negligent act was not for them but for the United States. 133 So. 656.

Whether the railroad companies may be held liable for Hunter's act depends not upon the fact that he was their servant generally, but upon whether the work which he was doing at the time was their work or that of another; a question determined, usually at least, by ascertaining under whose authority and command the work was being done. When one person puts his servant at the disposal and under the control of another for the performance of a particular service for the latter, the servant, in respect of his acts in that service, is to be dealt with as the servant of the latter and not of the former. This rule is elementary and finds support in a large number of decisions, a few only of which need be cited. In Standard Oil Co. v. Anderson, 212 U. S. 215, 220, 225, 29 S. Ct. 252, 253, 53 L. Ed. 480, this court said:

'The servant himself is, of course, liable for the consequences of his own carelessness. But when, as is so frequently the case, an attempt is made to impose upon the master the liability for those consequences, it sometimes becomes necessary to inquire who was the master at the very time of the negligent act or omission. One may be in the general service of another, and, nevertheless, with respect to particular work, may be transferred, with his own consent or acquiescence, to the service of a third person, so that he becomes the servant of that person, with all the legal consequences of the new relation. * * * 'To determine whether a given case falls within the one class or the other we must inquire whose is the work being performed,-a question which is usually answered by ascertaining who has the power to control and direct the servants in the performance of their work. Here we must carefully distinguish between authoritative direction and control, and mere suggestion as to details or the necessary coo peration, where the work furnished is part of a larger undertaking. * * *

'In many of the cases the power of substitution or discharge, the payment of wages and other circumstances bearing upon the relation are dwelt upon. They, however, are not the ultimate facts, but only those more or less useful in determining whose is the work and whose is the power of control.'

And see Linstead v. Ches. & Ohio Ry., 276 U. S. 28, 48 S. Ct. 241, 72 L. Ed. 453; Harrell v. Atlas Portland...