Oregon Short Line Ry Co v. Skottowe

• Decision Date: 20 April 1896
• Docket Number: No. 147,147
• Citation: 16 S.Ct. 869,162 U.S. 490,40 L.Ed. 1048
• Parties: OREGON SHORT LINE & U. N. RY. CO. v. SKOTTOWE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

162 U.S. 490

16 S.Ct. 869

40 L.Ed. 1048

OREGON SHORT LINE & U. N. RY. CO.

v SKOTTOWE.

No. 147.

April 20, 1896.

This was an action brought in the circuit court of the state of Oregon for Wasco county, by Jane Skottowe, against the Oregon Short Line & Utah Northern Railway Company, for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant company. The complaint was filed on October 31, 1890, and on November 10, 1890, the defendant filed a petition for the removal of the cause from the state court into the circuit court of the United States. This petition was denied, to which ruling the defendant excepted.

The case was proceeded in, and trial on the merits in the state court resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiff in the sum of $10,000. To this judgment a writ of error was sued out to the supreme court of the state of Oregon (30 Pac. 222); assigning as error, among others, the action of the trial court in denying the defendant's petition for the removal of the cause into the circuit court of the United States.

The supreme court of the state affirmed the judgment of the trial court, and a writ of error was allowed to this court.

John M. Thurston, for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 490-493 intentionally omitted] Alfred S. Bennett, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice SHIRAS, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.

In the complaint the defendant was described as 'a corporation duly organized, existing, and doing business in the state of Oregon.' The accident which caused plaintiff's injuries was alleged to have taken place at The Dalles on the Columbia river, and within the state of Oregon.

In the removal petition the defendant was alleged to be a consolidated company, composed of several railway corporations severally organized and created under the laws of the territories of Utah and Wyoming and of the state of Nevada, and under an act of congress approved August 2, 1882, entitled 'An act creating the Oregon Short Line Railway Company, a corporation in the territories of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, and for other purposes,' and an act of congress approved June 20, 1878, making the Utah & Northern Railway Company a railway corporation in the territories of Utah, Idaho, and Montana.

It was not claimed, either in the petition for removal, or in the answer subsequently filed, that the defendant company had any special defense arising under the acts of congress, which constituted a federal question, over which the courts of the United States had exclusive jurisdiction; but the contention is that, if any of the corporate powers of a railroad company depend upon the legislation of congress, the right of removal exists.

Congress has frequently conferred upon railway companies existing under territorial or state laws additional corporate franchises, rights, and privileges, and its right to do so cannot be doubted. Thus, it was held in California v. Central Pac. R. Co., 127 U. S. 39, 8 Sup. Ct. 1073, that congress possessed and validly exercised the power to create a system of railroads connecting the East with the Pacific coast, traversing states as well as territories, and to employ the agency of state as w ll as federal corporations.

And it must also be conceded that it was decided in the Pacific Railroad Removal Cases, 115 U. S. 1, 5 Sup. Ct. 1113, that where corporations created by acts of congress have become consolidated with state corporations, and where 'the whole being, capacities, autority, and obligations of companies so consolidated are so based upon, permeated by, and enveloped in the acts of congress that it is impracticable, so far as the operations and transactions of the companies are concerned, to disentangle their qualities and capacities which have their source and foundation in these acts from those which are derived from state or territorial authority,' suits by and against such corporations are 'suits arising under the laws of the United States,' and removable, as such, from state courts into circuit courts of the United States.

Even if the acts of congress of June 20, 1878, and August 2, 1882, so far conferred substantial rights and privileges upon the territorial and state corporations consolidated as the Oregon Short Line & Utah Northern Railway Company as to bring that company within the doctrine of the Pacific Railroad Removal Cases, yet we think that the present case comes within the rule that the federal question, or the federal character of the defendant company, must appear from the complaint in the action, in order to justify a removal, and that such federal question or character does not so appear.

There is no propriety in further considering that rule, because the reasons of it were fully set forth in the case of Tennessee v. Union Planters' Bank, 152 U. S. 454, 14 Sup. Ct. 654, and again in the very recent cases of Chappel v. Waterworth, 155 U. S. 102, 15 Sup. Ct. 34; Land Co. v. Brown, 155 U. S. 488, 15 Sup. Ct. 357; and Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Alabama, 155 U. S. 482, 15 Sup. Ct. 192.

The conclusion reached in those cases may be briefly stated thus: Under the acts of March 3, 1887, c. 373 (24 Stat....