Pan. R.R. Co. v. Johnson
| Citation | 44 S.Ct. 391,264 U.S. 375,68 L.Ed. 748 |
| Decision Date | 07 April 1924 |
| Docket Number | No. 369.,369. |
| Parties | PANAMA RAILROAD COMPANY v. JOHNSON. |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT.
1. As a general rule, where existing legislation on a particular subject has been systematically revised and restated in a comprehensive general statute, such as the Judicial Code, subsequent enactments touching that subject are to be construed and applied in harmony with the general statute, save as they clearly manifest a different purpose. P. 383.
2. Section 20 of the Act of March 4, 1915, as amended June 5, 1920, which allows a seaman suffering personal injury in his employment to sue his employer for damages, declares that "jurisdiction in such actions shall be under the court of the district in which the defendant employer resides or in which his principal office is located." Held, that the quoted provision (construed with Jud. Code, §§ 24 and 51,) relates only to venue, conferring a personal privilege which a defendant may waive, if he enters a general appearance before or without claiming it. Id.
3. Section 2 of Art. III of the Constitution, in extending the judicial power of the United States to "all eases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction," by implication made the admiralty and maritime law the law of the United States, subject to power in Congress to alter, qualify or supplement it as experience or changing conditions might require. P. 385.
4. This power of Congress extends to the entire subject, substantive and procedural, and permits of the exercise of a wide discretion, though subject to well recognized limitations, one of which is that there are boundaries to the maritime law and admiralty jurisdiction which cannot be altered by legislation, and another, that the enactments, when not relating to matters whose existence or influence is confined to a more limited field, shall be coextensive with and operate uniformly in the whole of the United States. P. 386.
5. The Act of March 4, 1915, § 20, as amended, provides that any seaman suffering personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action at law, with the right of trial by jury, "and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply."
Held: (a) The statute is not objectionable as an attempted withdrawal of subject matter from the reach of the maritime law, but is a permissible addition to that law of new rules concerning the rights and obligations of seamen and their employers. P. 388.
(b) Congress has power to make maritime rules in relative conformity to the common law or its modifications, and to permit enforcement of rights thereunder through proceedings in personam, according to the course of the common law on the common law side of the courts. Id.
(c) The statute is not to be construed as restricting enforcement of the new rights to actions at law, (which might mean an unconstitutional encroachment on the maritime jurisdiction,) but as allowing the injured seaman to assert his right of action under it either on the common law side, with right of trial by jury, or on the admiralty side, with trial to the court. P. 389.
(d) A statute may adopt the provisions of other statutes by reference. P. 391.
(e) The reference in the above statute is to the Federal Employers' Liability Act and its amendments. Id.
(f) The statute, with the legislation it incorporates by reference, has the uniformity required of maritime enactments. P. 392.
(g) The statute does not conflict with the Fifth Amendment in permitting injured seamen to elect between varying measures of redress and different forms of action without according a corresponding right to their employers. Id.
289 Fed. 964, affirmed.
ERROR to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals affirming a judgment entered in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York on a verdict recovered by the plaintiff, Johnson, as damages resulting from personal injuries sustained at sea in the course of his employment by the defendant railroad company as a seaman. The action was based on § 20 of the Act of March 4, 1915, c. 153, 38 Stat. 1185, § 33 of the Act of June 5, 1920, c. 250, 41 Stat. 1007.
Mr. Richard Reid Rogers for plaintiff in error.
I. The act is unconstitutional, inasmuch as it is destructive of the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the
courts of the United States guaranteed by § 2, Art. III, of the Constitution.
The rights of seamen against the shipowner with respect to injuries sustained while in the service are well settled by the maritime law. They have remained virtually unchanged since the laws of Oleron, which provide (Art. VI) "that if a seaman in service of the ship happens to become wounded or otherwise hurt; in that case he shall be cured and provided for at the cost and charge of the said ship"; and (Art. VII) "that if sick he is to be set ashore and receive wages if the ship departs." As more specifically defined in The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, they consist of a right to wages for the voyage and maintenance and cure, irrespective of fault on the part of the seaman; but to indemnity only in case of unseaworthiness or negligent medical treatment. The shipowner is not responsible for injuries to a seaman occasioned by the negligence of members of the crew, or ship's officers.
Under the railroad law there is of course no continuing obligation to pay wages or maintain and cure the employee, irrespective of the employer's fault; but upon the other hand the employer is responsible for the negligence of co-employees. There are other differences, as for example, the doctrine of comparative negligence, the non-assumption of the risk of appliances which fail to comply with statutory requirements, and the inability of the employer to limit his risk.
As the legal rights of the seaman under the act were construed below, the seaman alone is given the privilege of proceeding in admiralty for maintenance and cure if his case be one which would not justify a recovery under the railroad law, or upon the other hand, if his case be one which would not justify a recovery outside of maintenance and cure under the maritime law, of suing for full indemnity under the common law as modified by the railroad law; as, to illustrate, where his injuries are due to the negligence of a co-employee. In other words, one party to a maritime contract or arrangement is given the right under the act in question of taking his case wholly from the jurisdiction and principles of the maritime law, and of transferring it to the jurisdiction of a common law court there to be decided under the principles of common law as modified or extended in the irrelevant field of railroad legislation.
But conceding that Congress may amend the maritime law by modifying the principle of The Osceola to the extent of holding the shipowner responsible for injuries received by one seaman through the negligence of another, nevertheless, in such a case it would be the maritime law itself, that was modified or amended. Under this act, however, the maritime law is not directly amended, but a cause of action essentially maritime in its nature is bodily removed, or, at the election of one of the parties, may be removed, to a common law court, there to be decided, not according to maritime principles, but according to the very different common law principles, as modified or extended, in the case of personal injuries to railway employees.
If Congress can take a cause of action essentially maritime and provide that it shall no longer be dealt with according to the principles of maritime law, but according to the principles of the common law, it could in the end destroy the entire constitutional jurisdiction of the courts of the United States over maritime causes of action. If Congress can authorize one party to remove his cause from the jurisdiction and principles of the maritime law, and have it treated according to the conflicting principles and rights of the common law, it could undoubtedly do the same thing directly without extending an election to the litigant. In other words, Congress could provide that in all cases of injuries sustained by seamen, such cause of action should thereafter be tried in common law courts, according to common law principles, and there is no reason why it could not further provide that such causes could be tried according to common law principles in the courts of the several States. New Jersey Steam Nav. Co. v. Merchants' Bank, 6 How. 377.
Heretofore under the saving clause of the Judiciary Act of 1789, now Jud. Code, § 256, maritime rights could be prosecuted in common law courts where the common law gave an adequate remedy, but once there the litigant's rights would still be adjudicated according to the principles of the maritime law, Carlisle Packing Co. v. Sandanger, 259 U. S. 255; Chelentis v. Luckenbach S. S. Co., 247 U. S. 372; Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U. S. 149; but under this act a common law procedure is not only authorized, but maritime rights are disregarded, and the very opposite common law rights or statutory modifications thereof, substituted in their place.
The Constitution is sufficiently broad to prevent the destruction in whole or in part of the maritime law and the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States with respect thereto. The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558; The St. Lawrence, 1 Black, 522; Butler v. Boston & Savannah S. S. Co., 130 U. S. 527; The Blackheath, 195 U. S. 361.
The constitutional jurisdiction of the courts of the United States in maritime matters is exclusive. The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411; Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304; Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130; Stevenson v. Fain, 195 U. S. 165; Farrell v. Waterman S. S. Co., 291 Fed. 604; Butler v. Boston & Savannah S. S. Co., 130 U. S....
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