Missouri Ry Co v. Haber

• Decision Date: 14 March 1898
• Docket Number: No. 268,268
• Citation: 18 S.Ct. 488,42 L.Ed. 878,169 U.S. 613
• Parties: MISSOURI, K. & T. RY. CO. v. HABER et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

169 U.S. 613

18 S.Ct. 488

42 L.Ed. 878

MISSOURI, K. & T. RY. CO.

v HABER et al.

No. 268.

March 14, 1898.

[Syllabus from pages 613-614 intentionally omitted] James Hagerman, T. N. Sedgwick, and Simon Sterne, for plaintiff in error.

E. W. Cunningham, J. Jay Buck, and W. C.

Perry, for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.

This action was brought in one of the courts of Kansas against the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company, a corporation of that state, and certain persons constituting the respective firms of F. Brogan & Sons and Hozier Bros. Its object was to recover the damages sustained by the plaintiff Charles Haber, one of the appellees, by reason of the defendants having brought and caused to be brought into that state certain cattle alleged to have been affected with the disease known as Texas, splenic, or Spanish fever, and communicated by them to the plaintiff's cattle, whereby the latter sickened and died.

Many persons having like causes of action intervened as parties defendant, and each by cross petition asked judgment against the railway company.

It appeared in evidence that Hozier Bros. in the spring of 1892 owned and controlled a ranch of several thousand acres of land in Pecos county, Tex., upon which cattle known as Texas cattle were permitted to range. They entered into an agreement with F. Brogan & Sons, whereby the latter were to receive from the former a part of the above cattle at some point in Lyon county, Kan., and take them to their ranch in Chase county, in the same state, to be there grazed during the summer of 1892. In execution of that agreement, Hozier Bros. caused to be shipped by railroad into Kansas from Pecos county, Tex., about 2,500 head of cattle, which were delivered by the defendant company in its stock yards at Hartford, Kan., to F. Brogan & Sons, and by the latter were driven through Lyon and Chase counties to their range. These cattle, it was alleged, communicated Texas, splenic, or Spanish fever to domestic cattle that were owned by the plaintiff and by the cross petitioners.

The case was tried and submitted to the jury only as between the plaintiff, the cross petitioners, and the railway company the latter denying liability for any damages sustained by the former. The trial resulted in verdicts and judgments in favor of the plaintiff and of each of the cross petitioners. The judgments having been affirmed by one final judgment in the supreme court of Kansas, the case is here upon a writ of error sued out by the railway company, which contends that effect has been given to statutes of the state that are repugnant to the constitution and laws of the United States. That contention involves the federal question presented for determination.

In 1881 the legislature of Kansas passed an act for the protection of cattle in that state against contagious diseases. Laws Kan. 1881, c. 161. But those provisions need not be set out here, because they appear in subsequent enactments to which we will presently refer.

By a state enactment approved March 25, 1884, provision was made for a live-stock sanitary commission, which was charged with the duty of protecting 'the health of the domestic animals of the state from all contagious or infectious diseases of a malignant character,' an was empowered to establish, maintain, and enforce such quarantine, sanitary, and other regulations as it deemed necessary. Laws 1884, c. 2. And by an act approved March 26, 1884, that commission was authorized to create and enforce quarantine against the disease known as Texas, splenic, or Spanish fever in the unorganized counties of the state. Laws 1884, c. 4, § 1. The commission was also authorized and directed by another act approved on the same day to co-operate with the commissioner of agriculture of the United States or any officer of the general government in the suppression and extirpation of contagious diseases among domestic animals, and in the enforcement and execution of all acts of congress passed to prevent the importation or exportation of diseased cattle and the spread of infectious or contagious disease among domestic animals. Laws 1884, c. 5, § 1.

In 1885 another statute was passed, which was amended in 1891. Laws 1891, c. 201. As amended, and as it appears in 2 Gen. St. Kan. 1897, c. 139, p. 761 that statute made it a misdemeanor for any person, between the 1st day of February and the 1st day of December of any year, to drive or cause to be driven into or through any county in the state, or to turn upon or cause to be turned or kept upon any highway, range, common, or pasture within the state, any cattle capable of communicating or liable to impart what is known as Texas, splenic, or Spanish fever. Section 13. By another section it was made the duty of any sheriff, undersheriff, deputy sheriff, or constable within the state, upon complaint made to him that there were within the county where such officer resided cattle believed to be capable of communicating or liable to impart the disease known as Texas, splenic, or Spanish fever, to forthwith take charge of and restrain them under such temporary quarantine regulations as would prevent the communication of such disease, and make immediate report thereof to the live-stock sanitary commission. Section 14.

Other sections provided:

'Sec. 16. Any person or persons who shall drive, ship or transport, or cause to be shipped, driven or transported, into or through any county in this state, any cattle liable or capable of communicating Texas, splenic or Spanish fever, to any domestic cattle of this state, shall be liable to any person or persons injured thereby for all damages that they may sustain by reason of the communication of said disease, or Texas, splenic or Spanish fever, to be recovered in a civil action in any court of competent jurisdiction, and the parties so injured shall have a first and priorlien to all other liens for such damages on the cattle communicating the disease of Texas, splenic or Spanish fever.

'Sec. 17. In the trial of any person charged with the violation of any provisions of this act, and in the trial of any civil action brought to recover damages for the communication of Texas, splenic or Spanish fever, proof that the cattle which such person or persons are charged with shipping, driving or keeping, or which are claimed to have communicated the said diseases, were brought into this state from south of the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude, shall be taken as prima facie evidence that such cattle were, between the first day of February and the first day of December of the year in which the offense was committed, capable of communicating and liable to impart Texas, splenic or Spanish fever, within the meaning of this act, and that the owner or owners or person or persons in charge of such cattle had full knowledge and notice thereof. If the owner or owners or person or persons in charge of said cattle shall show by such certificate or certificates, as shall hereafter be designated by the live stock sanitary commission of the state, that the said cattle had been kept since the first day of December of the previous year west of the twenty-second meridian of longitude west from Washington, and north of the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitue , the provisions of this section shall not apply thereto.

'Sec. 18. Whenever two or more persons shall in violation of this act, at the same time or at different time during the same year, drive or cause to be driven upon the same highway, range, common or pasture within this state, any cattle capable of communicating or liable to impart Texas, splenic or Spanish fever, they shall be jointly and severally liable for all damages that may arise from the communication of such disease at any time thereafter during the same year to any native, domestic or acclimated cattle that shall have been upon the same highway, range, common or pasture so previously traveled over by such first mentioned cattle.'

The general contention of the plaintiff in error is that the act of congress of March 29, 1884 (23 Stat. 31, c. 60), known as the 'Animal Industry Act,' together with the act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 1044, 1049, c. 544), appropriating money to carry out the provisions of that act, and section 5258 of the Revised Statutes, relating to the transportation of passengers, freight, property, etc., from one state to another state by railroad, cover substantially the whole subject of the transportation from one state to another state of live stock liable to impart or capable of communicating infectious or contagious diseases, and therefore that the state of Kansas has no authority to deal in any form with that subject.

Are the acts of congress and the regulations established under their authority of such a character that the legislation of Kansas is without effect so far as it relates to injury done to domestic cattle by the bringing into that state of cattle liable to impart or capable of communicating Texas, splenic, or Spanish fever to domestic cattle?

The act of congress of March 29, 1884, provided for the establishment of a bureau of animal industry, and for the appointment of a chief thereof, and two competent, practical stock raisers or experienced business men, familiar with questions pertaining to commercial transactions in live stock, whose duty it should be, under the instructions of the commissioner of agriculture, to investigate and report upon the condition of the domestic animals of the United States, their protection and use, and also to examine and report upon the best methods of treating, transporting, and caring for animals, and the means to be adopted for the suppression and extirpation of contagious pleuro-pneumonia, and to provide against the spread of other dangerous, contagious, infectious, and communicable diseases. Sections 1, 2.

By other sections of the act it was provided:

'Sec. 3. That it...