Northern Pacific Railway Company v. Alline Dixon

• Decision Date: 16 May 1904
• Docket Number: No. 211,211
• Parties: NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. ALLINE A. DIXON, Administratrix of the Estate of Chauncey A. Dixon, Deceased
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

194 U.S. 338

24 S.Ct. 683

48 L.Ed. 1006

NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY

v ALLINE A. DIXON, Administratrix of the Estate of Chauncey A. Dixon, Deceased.

No. 211.

Argued and submitted April 13, 1904.

Decided May 16, 1904.

This case is before us on questions certified by the circuit court of appeals for the eighth circuit. The facts as stated are that Chauncey A. Dixon was employed on December 25, 1899, by the Northern Pacific Railway Company as a fireman in operating extra freight train No. 162, and while so engaged was killed by means of a head-end collision of that train with extra freight train No. 159. The company had made and promulgated time-tables for its regular trains, and had adopted reasonable rules for the operation of all its trains. The time-tables did not and could not provide for the running of extra trains. The company had in its employ a train despatcher at Missoula, Montana, who had general power and sole authority to make and promulgate orders for the running, on the division of the road on which this collision occurred, of those trains which were not governed by the time-tables. A large proportion of its freight trains on this division were run as extra trains, and the times of their arrival and departure were not shown on the regular time-tables, but their movements were made upon telegraphic orders issued by the train despatcher upon information furnished by telegraph to him by the station agents and operators along the line of the road. All these facts were known to Dixon. One of the rules of the company was: 'Operators will promptly record in a book to be kept for the purpose, and report to the superintendent, the time of arrival and departure of all trains, and the direction in which extra trains are moving.' The reports mentioned in this rule were made to the train despatcher, and he was vested with the authority of the superintendent to issue orders for the movement of trains.

These two freight trains were running in opposite directions, train No. 162 going east. It arrived at Bonita at 12.35 A. M. and left there at 12.50 A. M. The local operator and station agent at that place was asleep, and did not know of or report its arrival and passage to the despatcher. None of the crew of that train were aware of the fact that train No. 159 was coming west. The railroad had but one track. At 1.05 A. M. No. 159 reached Garrison, about 48 miles east of Bonita, and that was reported to the train despatcher. Thereupon he asked the operator at Bonita, by telegraph, whether No. 162 had arrived there, and the operator promptly answered that it had not. This question was repeated, and the operator was asked if he was sure that No. 162 had not passed Bonita, and he replied that he was sure that it had not. Thereupon the train despatcher issued orders for the movement of these two trains, which were sufficient to guard against collision if the information received had been correct, but as it was not correct, the movement of the trains resulted in a collision and the death of Dixon, to recover damages for which this action was brought. Upon these facts the circuit court of appeals certified the following questions:

'First. When a local telegraph operator is called upon specially by a train despatcher to give information relative to the arrival of a train at his station, to enable the despatcher to formulate orders for the movement of other trains, does the local operator, in the matter of giving such information, act as a fellow servant of train operatives in such sense that the master is not liable to train operatives who are injured by obeying an erroneous order of the despatcher, that was induced by false information given by the local operator?

'Second. Is the negligence of a local telegraph operator and station agent of a railway company in observing and reporting by telegraph to the train despatcher the movement of trains past his station, which causes the injury or death of a fireman of the company, without any fault or negligence the fireman, the risk of which the latter assumes?' of a vice principal, for which the railway company is liable in damages to the fireman or his personal representatives, or is it the negligence of a fellow servant of the fireman, the risk of which the latter assumes" Messrs. C. W. Bunn, Emerson Hadley, and James B. Kerr for the Northern Pacific Railway Company.

[Argument of Counsel from Page 341 intentionally omitted] Messrs. A. M. Antrobus, D. J. O'Connell, and R. J. Burglehaus for the administratrix.

Statement by Mr. Justic

e Brewer:

Mr. Justice Brewer delivered the opinion of the court:

A Servant is entitled to recover damages for injuries suffered through the personal fault or misconduct of his employer, but when the employer has been personally free from blame, and the injury results from the fault or misconduct of a fellow servant, it would seem reasonable that the wrongdoer should be alone responsible, and that one who is innocent should not be called upon to pay damages. And such is the general rule. But where the employer is a railroad or other corporation having a large number of employees, sometimes engaged in different departments of service, certain limitations or qualifications of this general rule have been prescribed. Perhaps no question has been more frequently considered by the courts than that of fellow servant, and none attended with more varied suggestions and attempted qualifications. It has been discussed so often that any extended discussion in the present case is unnecessary, and it is sufficient to state the principal suggestions, and consider their applicability to the case at bar.

In a recent case in this court (New England R. Co. v. Conroy, 175 U. S. 323, 44 L. ed. 181, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 85), it was said (p. 328, L. ed. p. 184, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 86):

'We have no hesitation in holding, both upon principle and authority, that the employer is not liable for an injury to one employee occasioned by the negligence of another engaged in the same general undertaking; that it is not necessary that the servants should be engaged in the same operation or particular work; that it is enough, to bring the case within the general rule of exemption, if they are in the employment of the same master, engaged in the same common enterprise, both employed to perform duties tending to accomplish the same general purposes, or, in other words, if the services of each, in his particular sphere or department, are directed to the accomplishment of the same general end.'

Tested by this, it is obvious that the local operator was a fellow servant with the fireman. They were 'engaged in the same general undertaking,'—the movement of trains. They were called upon 'to perform duties tending to accomplish the same general purposes,' and 'the services of each in his particular sphere or department were directed to the accomplishment of the same general end.' The fireman who shovels coal into the fire-box of the engine is not doing precisely the same work as the engineer, neither is the conductor who signals to the engineer to start or to stop, nor the operator who delivers from the telegraph office at the station to the engineer orders to move, and who reports the coming and going of trains; and yet they are all working, each in his particular sphere, towards the accomplishment of this one result,—the movement of trains.

Another qualification suggested is where the one guilty of the negligence has such general control, and occupies such relation to the work, that he, in effect, takes the place of the employer,—becomes a vice principal, or alter ego, as he is sometimes called. If an employer, whether an individual or a corporation, giving no personal attention to the work, places it in the entire control of another, such person may be not improperly regarded as the principal, and his negligence that of the principal. That thought has, in some cases, been carried further, and when it appeared that the work in which the employer was engaged was divided into separate and distinct departments, the one in charge of each of those departments has been regarded as also a vice principal. In Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Baugh, 149 U. S. 368, 383, 37 L. ed. 772, 779, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 914, 919, we said:

'It is only carrying the same principle a little further, and with reasonable application, when it is held that, if the business of the master and employer becomes so vast and diversified that it naturally separates itself into departments of service, the individuals placed by him in charge of those separate branches and departments of service, and given entire and absolute control therein, are properly to be considered, with respect to employees under them, vice principals,—representatives of the master as fully and as completely as if the entire business of the master was by him placed under charge of one superintendent. It was this proposition which the court applied in the Ross Case [112 U. S. 377, 28 L. ed. 787, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 184], holding that the conductor of a train has the control and management of a distinct department. But this rule can only be fairly applied when the different branches or departments of service are, in and of themselves, separate and distinct.'

So also in Northern P. R. Co. v. Peterson, 162 U. S. 346, 40 L. ed. 994, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 843, it was held that the foreman of a gang of laborers EMPLOYED IN PUTTING IN TIES AND KEEPING In repair a part of the road, although he had the power to hire or discharge any laborer, and exclusive control and management in all matters connected with their work, was a fellow servant with the men in the gang; and on page 355, L. ed. p. 997, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 846, the rule was thus stated:

'The rule is that in order to form an exception to the general law of nonliability the person whose neglect caused the injury must be 'one who was clothed with the control and management of a distinct department, and not a...