Grant v. Atl. Coast Line R. Co, (No. 19169.)

• Decision Date: 10 April 1929
• Docket Number: (No. 19169.)
• Parties: GRANT v. ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO. et al.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

39 Ga.App. 596

147 S.E. 919

GRANT

v.ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO. et al.

(No. 19169.)

Court of Appeals of Georgia,

Division No. 2.

April 10, 1929.

(Syllabus by Editorial Staff.)

Error from City Court of Atlanta; Hugh M. Dorsey, Judge.

Action by P. C. Grant against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.

T. J. Lewis and J. Caleb Clarke, both of Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.

McDaniel & Neely and Rembert Marshall, all of Atlanta, for defendants in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court.

JENKINS, P. J. [1, 2] 1. "Under the Federal Safety Appliance Acts, carriers in interstate commerce are liable in damages to their employees, injured in the discharge of duty, whenever the failure to comply with those acts is the proximate cause of injury." Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Layton, 243 U. S. 617, 37 S. Ct. 456, 61 L. Ed. 931; Lang v. New York Cent. R. Co., 255 U. S. 455, 459, 41 S. Ct. 381, 65 L. Ed. 729. But "liability cannot bo predicated upon the defendant's violation of a federal statute enacted for the safety of employees unless there is a causal connection between such violation and the injury or death." Watson v. Georgia Southern & Florida Ry. Co., 36 Ga. App. 452, 136 S. E. 921. Accordingly, in a suit brought by an employee of a railroad company for damage alleged to have been occasioned by the vio lation by the defendant of the Federal Safety Appliance Acts (45 USCA § 1 et seq.), it was not error for the court to state the contention of the defendant that the injury to the plaintiff was brought about solely by his own negligence, and that, if the jury should find this contention to be the truth of the case, the plaintiff would not be entitled to recover.

2. A failure by a railway company engaged in interstate commerce to equip and maintain its cars as required by a rule of the Interstate Commerce Commission, adopted in pursuance of the authority conferred upon it by the Safety Appliance Acts of Congress, amounts to a violation of both the rule and the statute; and the charge of the court, to the effect that the plaintiff must show such a violation of the act and the Commission's regulations resulting in whole or in part in plaintiff's proved injuries, was not erroneous, since the alleged delinquency of the defendant upon which the action was grounded was in violation of the act, because in violation of a regulation of the Commission authorized by the act.

3. The charge of the court that ...