Meese v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 16 February 1914
• Docket Number: 2287.
• Citation: 211 F. 254
• Parties: MEESE et al. v. NORTHERN PAC. RY. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

211 F. 254

MEESE et al. v. NORTHERN PAC. RY. CO.

No. 2287.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

February 16, 1914

The plaintiffs, the wife and children of Benjamin Meese deceased, citizens of the state of Washington, filed their complaint in the court below against the defendant, Northern Pacific Railway Company, a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the state of Wisconsin, to recover from said defendant the sum of $25,715.53 as damages sustained by them by reason of the death of their said husband and father.

It appeared from the complaint that the defendant maintained a track or switch connecting with its main tracks, by means of which freight cars were furnished to the Seattle Brewing &amp Malting Company for the loading of the finished product of its plant situate in the city of Seattle, Wash.; that said switch ran alongside of and parallel with a house or building of the brewing company known as the wire house, in which was stored the finished product of the plant to be loaded into cars for shipment to various parts of the country; that the cars left on said track or switch by the defendant were loaded with the barrels containing the finished product of the brewing company by means of skids and other appliances extending from the wire house into the car, said barrels being rolled from said wire house along and over the skids into the car.

It further appeared from said complaint that on the 12th day of April, 1913, the decedent, Benjamin Meese, was in the employ of said brewing company at its said plant in the city of Seattle, Wash.; that his duties, among others, as such employe, consisted in placing government stamps upon the barrels containing the finished product of the brewing company, and also in assisting in loading said barrels from the wire house of the brewing company into the cars supplied by the defendant on its said track or switch, for that purpose; that, at the time the decedent received the injuries from which he afterwards died, he was engaged, pursuant to his duties as an employe of said brewing company, in placing government stamps upon the barrels containing the finished product of said brewing company, as they were being rolled along one of the skids above referred to from the wire house of the brewing company into the car of the defendant standing on said track or switch; that for this purpose he was standing on a platform which ran below said skid and along the side of and parallel with said wire house, and between said wire house and the track or switch of the defendant, such position being the position from which said work and duty was usually carried on and performed by employes of the brewing company when engaged in placing government stamps upon its finished product; that, while the decedent was so employed, the defendant, by and through its agents and employes, carelessly and negligently, and without warning to the deceased, caused a number of cars to come down its siding or switch with tremendous force and momentum, striking the car then being loaded with the finished product of the brewing company causing the skid then being used for that purpose to fly back against the decedent, whereby a large number of barrels containing said finished product, then being moved and rolled along said skid, fell upon said decedent, causing the injuries from which he afterwards died.

To the complaint the defendant interposed a demurrer on the ground that the same failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against it; that there was no authority in law under which the plaintiffs' action could be maintained as against the defendant for the reason that it appeared from the complaint that Benjamin Meese, on account of whose wrongful death the action was brought, sustained the injuries of which complaint was made at the place of work and the plant of his employer, and that plaintiffs' claim came within the terms of chapter 74 of the Session Laws of the state of Washington for 1911, being an act relating to compensation to injured workmen, and for the further reason that the court had no jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the action, the injuries to plaintiffs' decedent having occurred while he was employed at the works and plant of his employer, and all rights of action by reason of the matters set forth in the plaintiffs' complaint having been withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the court by chapter 74 of the Session Laws of Washington for 1911, known as the Workmen's Compensation Act.

The demurrer was sustained by the court below, and, the plaintiffs electing to stand upon their complaint without amendment, it was ordered and decreed that the action be dismissed, from which order and decree the plaintiffs sued out a writ of error from this court.

Govnor Teats, Leo Teats, and Ralph Teats, all of Tacoma, Wash., for plaintiffs in error.

C. H. Winders, of Seattle, Wash., for defendant in error.

Before GILBERT, ROSS, and MORROW, Circuit Judges.

MORROW Circuit Judge (after stating the facts as above).

1. The question on this appeal arises out of an act of the Legislature of the state of Washington, approved March 14, 1911, known as and designated the 'Workmen's Compensation Act' (chapter 74, Session Laws of the state of Washington, p. 345), relating to the compensation of workmen in extrahazardous employments in that state. The constitutionality of the act is not attacked by either party, and the fact that the death of the decedent was due to the wrongful act and negligence of the railway company is not denied by that company. But the position taken by the plaintiffs in error (the plaintiffs in the court below) and controverted by the defendant in error, the Northern Pacific Railway Company, is that the Workmen's Compensation Act of the state of Washington does not and never was intended to deny to or take from the heirs or personal representatives of a deceased person their right of action for damages against the person or corporation, not an employer, whose wrongful act caused the death of such deceased person. This contention of the plaintiffs in error is: That, the death of Benjamin Meese having been caused by the wrongful act and negligence of the Northern Pacific Railway Company, not his employer, his heirs, the plaintiffs in error herein, are not barred by the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act from maintaining their statutory right of action against the railway company by reason of the fact that, at the time the decedent was killed, he was in the employ of the Seattle Brewing Company and acting in the discharge of his duties as an employe of that company.

The intent of the Legislature of the state of Washington with respect to the scope and purview of the Compensation Act must be ascertained by a construction of the act as a whole, keeping well in view the evils which, as declared by the act itself, it was intended to remedy.

The primary title of the act is as follows:

'Relating to compensation of injured workmen.'

The secondary title is as follows:

'An act relating to the compensation of injured workmen in our industries, and the compensation to their dependents where such injuries result in death, creating an industrial insurance department, making an appropriation for its administration, providing for the creation and disbursement of funds for the compensation and care of workmen injured in hazardous employment, providing penalties for the nonobservance of regulations for the prevention of such injuries and for violation of its provisions, asserting and exercising the police power in such cases, and, except in certain specified cases, abolishing the doctrine of negligence as a ground for recovery of damages against employers, and depriving the courts of jurisdiction of such controversies, and repealing sections 6594, 6595 and 6596 of Remington and Ballinger's Annotated Codes and Statutes of Washington, relating to employes in factories, mills or workshops where machinery is used, actions for the recovery of damages and prescribing a punishment for the violation thereof.'

The act contains its own declaration of legislative policy in the following specific terms:

'Section 1. The common-law system governing the remedy of workmen against employers for injuries received in hazardous work is inconsistent with modern industrial conditions. In practice it proves to be economically unwise and unfair. Its administration has produced the result that little of the cost of the employer has reached the workman and that little only at large expense to the public. The remedy of the workman has been uncertain, slow and inadequate. Injuries in such works, formerly occasional, have become frequent and inevitable. The welfare of the state depends upon its industries, and even more upon the welfare of its wage-worker. The state of Washington, therefore, exercising herein its police and sovereign power, declares that all phases of the premises are withdrawn from private controversy, and sure and certain relief for workmen, injured in extrahazardous work, and their families and dependents is hereby provided regardless of questions of fault and to the exclusion of every other remedy, proceeding or compensation, except as otherwise provided in this act; and to that end all civil actions and civil causes of actions for such personal injuries and all jurisdiction of the courts of the state over such causes are hereby abolished, except as in this act provided.'

Section 2 contains an enumeration of the extrahazardous occupations or works to which the act is intended to apply.

Section 3 contains particular definitions of the terms employed in the act.

Sections 4 to 19, inclusive, set forth the schedules of contribution...