Palmetto Lumber Co. v. Southern Ry.

• Decision Date: 25 October 1929
• Docket Number: 12751.
• Citation: 151 S.E. 279,154 S.C. 129
• Parties: PALMETTO LUMBER CO. v. SOUTHERN RY. et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

151 S.E. 279

154 S.C. 129

PALMETTO LUMBER CO. v. SOUTHERN RY. et al.

No. 12751.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

October 25, 1929

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Bamberg County; T. J Mauldin, Judge.

Action by the Palmetto Lumber Company against the Southern Railway and another. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

R. E Whiting, of Columbia, Brown & Bush, of Barnwell, J. Wesley Crum, of Denmark, S. C., and B. D. Carter, of Bamberg, for appellant.

Harley & Blatt, of Barnwell, and S. G. Mayfield, of Bamberg, for respondents.

GRAYDON A. A. J.

This was an action by the plaintiff, Palmetto Lumber Company against Southern Railway and Southern Railway--Carolina Division, defendants, on two separate causes of action for the destruction of certain premises by communicated fire.

The first cause of action alleges the communication of the fire from the locomotive of a train operated by the defendants to certain property of plaintiff, destroying same, and claims the right to recover under section 4910, vol. 3, Code of 1922. The second cause of action alleges that the defendants willfully, wantonly, recklessly, carelessly, and negligently managed and operated the engine causing the fire. The complaint prays for judgment against the defendants for the sum of $91,587.

From the undisputed facts in the case it appears that the Palmetto Lumber Company is a corporation duly organized under the laws of the state of South Carolina, and was engaged in the sawmill and planing business on certain property built on land leased from J. B. Guess, Jr., which property adjoined that of the Denmark Milling Company. A side track was built along the flour mill of the Denmark Milling Company, which track was used as an interchange track between the Southern Railway Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway Company. After the flour mill was constructed, the track in question was designated as an industrial track, but for some distance, approximately ten car lengths from the depot, it was still used as an interchange track.

The Palmetto Lumber Company on December 1, 1924, entered into a contract with the Southern Railway Company, agreeing, in consideration of the extension of said side track, to exempt from liability the Southern Railway Company for fires which were communicated from the trains of said Southern Railway Company operated on said tracks to the property of the plaintiff herein. The cost of the construction of this extension track was paid by the Palmetto Lumber Company. A large percentage of logs is brought into the sawmill over this track, and also a majority of the lumber is shipped out over this track. There are two questions involved in the appeal, which will be taken up in order.

The first question is as to the construction of section 4917 of the Code, with relation to section 4910. This general article is found under the large title of "Railroads," chapter 52, vol. 3, Code of Laws of 1922. This general chapter contains 11 articles, which are classified by the code commissioner and the various sections grouped under the different articles. Article 7 has the following title: "Regulations for the Prevention of Accidents and Concerning the Responsibility Thereof." Under this general article there are various and sundry regulations with reference to the equipment of trains, formation of trains, signals to be given at crossings, warning boards at crossings, requiring trains to stop at stations, defining the responsibility of the railroad company for damages by fire, and many other such regulations which the General Assembly has placed upon railroad companies. In passing, it may be said that this article does not contain solely regulations as to accidents and concerning the responsibility therefor, as set forth in the title, but under the article are such titles as: "New Railroad--When and How Opened," "Railroad Company to Furnish Shelter for Certain Employees," and various other matters which are not at all concerned with accidents. Beginning at section 4914 and through section 4922, the entire reference is to the liability of railroads for injuries to employees, and these sections all are part and parcel of the Act of 1916, General Assembly, vol. 29, p. 970.

The contention of appellant is that, as section 4910, fixing the responsibility of the railroads for damages by fire, and Section 4917, are in the same Article, this codification of necessity prevents the railroad from limiting its liability as to fire damage under section 4910, and therefore that the contract in question is void as a matter of law, being in conflict with provisions of section 4917. A full reading of section 4917 is necessary to a complete understanding of its terms and its scope.

"(4917) § 20. No Exemption from Liability-- Proviso.--That any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any common carrier to exempt itself from any liability created by this article, shall to that extent be void: Provided, that in any action brought against any such common carrier under or by virtue of any of the provisions of this article, such common carrier may set off therein any sum it has contributed or paid to any insurance, relief benefit, or indemnity that may have been paid to the injured employee or the person entitled thereto on account of the injury or death for which said action was brought."

It will be seen that the proviso in said section refers solely and exclusively to amounts paid by insurance companies on relief benefits to the injured employee, or the person entitled thereto, on account of the injury or death for which said action was brought.

There is no question that, under the authorities in this state and the Constitution, the code commissioner is given the authority to arrange the various acts of the Legislature, and when the Code thus arranged is adopted by the Legislature it becomes the sole statute law of the State of South Carolina. This is so well settled by the decisions of our court that it is useless to cite authority therefor. There is, however, another principle of statutory construction which is equally forceful, and that is that where the section in question, construed with the other sections of the article in question, constitutes or creates an ambiguity, it is the province of this court, under such state of facts to go back to the original act and trace its history, to ascertain the real meaning intended by the Legislature. Judge Mauldin, in ruling on this question, did not state that the act was not ambiguous, but he simply said that under his construction a directed verdict was proper. To hold that section 4917 refers to every part of article 7 would be manifestly absurd, with the proviso which is thereto attached. It then becomes necessary to examine the history of this section, to see when it was passed, under what circumstances, and what the real intention of the Legislature was in its passage.

A study of the original act of 1916, designated as No. 557 and found at page 970, shows that section 4 thereof, which is now section 4917 of the Code, uses the word "article," where the original act uses the word "act." The word "act" is used in section 5, section 6, section 7, and other parts thereof, and in...