Hoffman v. New York, NH & HR Co.

• Decision Date: 10 December 1934
• Docket Number: No. 65.,65.
• Citation: 74 F.2d 227
• Parties: HOFFMAN v. NEW YORK, N. H. & H. R. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

74 F.2d 227 (1934)

HOFFMAN v. NEW YORK, N. H. & H. R. CO.^*

No. 65.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

December 10, 1934.

John M. Gibbons, of New York City (E. R. Brumley, of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.

Thomas J. O'Neill, of New York City (Thomas J. O'Neill and William J. Hogan, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellee.

Before L. HAND, SWAN, and AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judges.

AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment for the plaintiff in an action for personal injuries which he claimed to have sustained while engaged in interstate commerce. The complaint alleges that the defendant negligently maintained and operated a motor car and hand car so as to cause it to derail and injure the plaintiff. The trial was had before Judge Galston and a jury and resulted in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $85,000, which was subsequently reduced to $65,000.

On the evening of July 14, 1932, at the defendant's railroad yards at New Haven, Conn., the plaintiff's foreman told him that there were two flat cars on track 14 (the numbers of which were known to plaintiff's colaborer Brooks) which were to be placed the next morning on track 2 in a building in which plaintiff was employed, to be loaded with car wheels to go to Readeville, Mass. In order to do this it was necessary to pull out the hand car involved in the accident, and then put the two flat cars on track 2. On the morning of July 15, Hoffman, the plaintiff, and a fellow workman Fogler, coupled the hand car on track 2 to a gasoline locomotive which was used in the yard for all kinds of switching. At one end of this gasoline locomotive was an automatic coupler, but in the other end a hole had been bored some 2½ inches in diameter for the purpose of holding a large bolt to which a chain could be attached. An iron bar about seveneighths of an inch in diameter and 33 to 36 inches long, and having a hook at each end, was used as a makeshift coupler. One of the hooks was inserted in a hole in the frame of the gasoline locomotive and the other in some device on the hand car. In each hook was a small hole in which to insert a cotter pin. The cotter pins used were too small to secure the hooked end in the hole in the locomotive. Therefore the hook in the frame of the locomotive was loose and there was nothing to prevent its springing out upon any unusual movement or jerk of the engine. There were no power brakes on the locomotive. There was a foot brake, but the pedal was broken off. There was a hand brake also, but it would not hold, and there were no brakes on the hand car. Hoffman had complained about the condition of the brakes on the gasoline locomotive to his foreman and told him that they were no good. He got the reply that there was no machinist around at the time, but he would take care of the matter. There had been no repairs to the engine, so far as Hoffman knew, for ten years, when it had been overhauled, when he was foreman, under his direction.

The plaintiff sat on the side of the hand car which had been attached to the gasoline engine by the iron bar and hooks above mentioned. The engine backed the car out from track 2 so as to clear it for the Readeville cars and started to back it into the railroad shop down track 6. The engine was running at about 25 miles an hour, and, when the hand car got 40 or 50 feet from the shop, it "leaped," the book came out of the hole and shortly thereafter the engine bumped into the hand car, which went off the track and caught the plaintiff between it and the engine. In this way he suffered serious permanent injuries to recover damages for which this action was brought, resulting in a large verdict against the railroad company.

The defendant seeks a reversal of the judgment on various grounds but, first, because shortly after the accident the parties entered into an agreement for compensation under the Connecticut Workmen's Compensation Act (Gen. St. Conn. 1930, § 5223 et seq., as amended), and received payments thereunder up to the commencement of this action amounting to $693.72. It is contended that the award under that act was res judicata, also that there was in addition an accord and satisfaction and that in either event the cause of action is barred. The agreement was approved by the compensation commissioner, was filed in the office of the clerk of the superior court of New Haven county, Conn., and the payments made in accordance with it are unquestioned.

The Connecticut statutes (Gen. St. 1930) contain the following provisions:

"Sec. 5247. Voluntary agreements. If an employer and an injured employee * * * shall * * * reach an agreement in regard to compensation, such agreement shall be submitted in writing to the commissioner * * * and, if such commissioner shall find such agreement to conform to the provisions of this chapter in every regard, he shall so approve it. Each agreement thus approved shall be filed in the office of the clerk of the superior court. * * * A copy of such agreement shall be retained by the commissioner, and a like copy delivered to each of the parties, and thereafter it shall be as binding upon both parties as an award by the commissioner. * * *"

The Connecticut courts have held that the compensation commissioner has no right to approve a voluntary agreement unless it conforms to the statute. Fair v. Hartford Rubber Works Co., 95 Conn. 350, 355, 111 A. 193.

Section 5251 sets forth the effect of such an award:

Sec. 5251. Award of Commissioner * * *. — "The original award shall be filed in the office of the clerk of the superior court for the county in which the injury occurred. * * * If no appeal from his decision shall be taken * * * within ten days thereafter, such finding and award shall be final and may be enforced in the same manner as a judgment of the superior court. The superior court is authorized to issue execution upon any * * * final award of a commissioner in the same manner as in cases of judgments rendered in the superior court. * * *"

Section 5262 limits the incidence of the Compensation Act as follows:

Sec. 5262. Interstate Commerce. "This chapter shall not affect the liability of employers to employees engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, for death or injury, in case the laws of the United States provide for compensation or for liability for such death or injury."

This last section shows that the Compensation act only relates to injuries to railroad employees when engaged in intrastate commerce. The agreement here contained no mention of interstate or intrastate commerce, but only set forth that the parties had "reached an agreement in regard to compensation for an injury arising out of and in the course of employment and sustained by said employee * * * for which employee claims compensation under chapter 280 of the General Statutes as amended. * * *"

A decision of an administrative board that a workman (at the time of an accident) was engaged in intrastate commerce is entitled to full faith and credit and can be no more attacked collaterally than that of a court. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. v. Schendel, 270 U. S. 611, 46 S. Ct. 420, 70 L. Ed. 757, 53 A. L. R. 1265; Dennison v. Payne (C. C. A.) 293 F. 333. But there was no such determination by the Connecticut commission unless we assume that the tribunal reached the conclusion that Hoffman was engaged in intrastate commerce because such a conclusion was necessary to afford a basis for approving the agreement and for allowing compensation. The Connecticut decisions, however, establish that no presumption of regularity accompanies the findings of a tribunal of limited jurisdiction in the absence of some evidence in the record that it found the facts upon which jurisdiction depended. Such facts cannot, as in the case of courts of general jurisdiction, be inferred from the mere exercise of jurisdiction. Sears v. Terry, 26 Conn. 273; Hartford v. Poindexter, 84 Conn. 121, 79 A. 79, 83. In the last decision cited, the city of Hartford insisted that introduction in evidence of the final proceedings of its common council, establishing a building line and approving an assessment, carried the implication that the statutory requirements as to notice had been complied with and foreclosed further investigation in a subsequent suit involving the same subject-matter. But the Connecticut Supreme Court held that the municipal authorities were "inferior tribunals" and said that:

"There is no presumption in favor of their jurisdiction as there is in the case of courts of general jurisdiction. * * * The judgments of such courts, taken alone, are entirely disregarded, and the proceedings must show their jurisdiction."

In Coit v. Haven, 30 Conn. 190, 79 Am. Dec. 244, the court stated the rule thus:

"We do not understand that, upon the authorities at home or abroad, there is any contrariety of opinion, that a domestic judgment rendered by a court of general jurisdiction, where no want of jurisdiction is apparent on the record, can not be collaterally attacked. If it be a foreign judgment, or the judgment of a court of limited jurisdiction, or the want of jurisdiction is apparent on the record, it can be collaterally attacked; for then the jurisdiction is not presumed, or the presumption is repelled by the record itself, and the judgment is an absolute nullity if the want of jurisdiction in fact exists."

See, also, Galpin v. Page, 18 Wall. 350, 366, 21 L. Ed. 959; Matter of Doey v. Clarence P. Howland Co., 224 N. Y. 30, 38, 120 N. E. 53; Taylor v. Robert Ramsay Co., 139 Md. 113, 114 A. 830; Pulaski County v. Stuart, Buchanan & Co., 28 Grat. (Va.) 872; Spear v. Carter, 1 Mich. 19, 48 Am. Dec. 688; Wyatt's Adm'r v. Rambo, 29 Ala. 510, 68 Am. Dec. 89; Freeman on Judgments (5th Ed.) §§ 390, 392, 397.

In view of the absence of proof before the commissioner or any findings by him that the plaintiff was engaged in intrastate commerce at the time of the accident, the...