Panama Co v. Bosse

• Decision Date: 03 March 1919
• Docket Number: No. 203,203
• Parties: PANAMA R. CO. v. BOSSE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

249 U.S. 41

39 S.Ct. 211

63 L.Ed. 466

PANAMA R. CO.

v BOSSE.

No. 203.

Submitted Jan. 31, 1919.

Decided March 3, 1919.

Messrs. Frank Feuille, of Ancon, Canal Zone, and Jackson H. Ralston and William E. Richardson, both of Washington, D. C., for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Theodore C. Hinckley, of Panama, Canal Zone, and Joseph W. Bailey, of Washington, D. C., for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an action for personal injuries and consequent suffering alleged to have been caused, on July 3, 1916, by the Railroad Company's chauffeur's negligent driving of a motor omnibus at an excessive rate of speed in a crowded thoroughfare in the Canal Zone. The suit was brought in the District Court of the Canal Zone. The defendant, the plaintiff in error, demurred to the declaration generally, and also demurred specifically to that part that claimed damages for pain. The demurrer was overruled and there was a trial, at which, after the evidence was in, the defendant requested the Court to direct a verdict in its favor and, failing that, to instruct the jury that the plaintiff could not recover for physical pain. The instructions were refused, the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff and the judgment was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. 239 Fed. 303, 152 C. C. A. 291, followed in Panama R. Co. v. Toppin (C. C. A.) 250 Fed. 989.

The main question in the case is whether the liability of master for servant familiar to the common law can be applied to this accident arising in the Canal Zone. Subordinate to that is the one already indicated, whether there can be a recovery for physical pain. There is some slight attempt also to argue that the defendant's negligence was not the immediate cause of the injury, but as that depended upon the view that the jury might take of the facts and as there was evidence justifying the verdict, we shall confine ourselves to the two above-mentioned questions of law.

By the Act of Congress of April 28, 1904, c. 1758, § 2, 33 Stat. 429, temporary powers of government over the Canal Zone were vested in such persons and were to be exercised in such manner as the President should direct. An executive order of the President addressed to the Secretary of War on March 8, 1904, directed that the power of the Isthmian Commission should be exer cised under the Secretary's direction. The order contained this passage, 'The laws of the land, with which the inhabitants are familiar, and which were in force on February 26, 1904, will continue in force in the canal zone * * * until altered or annulled by the said commission'; with power to the Commission to legislate, subject to approval by the Secretary. This was construed to keep in force the Civil Code of the Republic of Panama, which was translated into English and pub lished by the Isthmian Canal Commission in 1905. By the Act of Congress of August 24, 1912, c. 390, § 2, 37 Stat. 560, 561 (Comp. St. § 10038):

'All laws, orders, regulations, and ordinances adopted and promulgated in the Canal Zone by order of the President for the government and sanitation of the Canal Zone and the construction of the Panama Canal are hereby ratified and confirmed as valid and binding until Congress shall otherwise provide.'

On these facts it is argued that the defendant's liability is governed by the Civil Code alone as it would be construed in countries where the civil law prevails and that so construed the code does not sanction the application of the rule respondeat superior to the present case.

But there are other facts to be taken into account before a decision can be reached. On December 5, 1912, acting under the authority of the before-mentioned Act of August 24, 1912, § 3 (Comp. St. § 10039), the President declared all the land within the limits of the Canal Zone to be necessary for the construction, etc., of the Panama Canal and directed the Chairman of the Isthmian Commission to take possession of it, with provisions for the extinguishment of all adverse claims and titles. It is admitted by the plaintiff in error that the Canal Zone at the present time is peopled only by the employes of the Canal, the Panama Railroad, and the steamship lines and oil companies permitted to do business in the Zone under license. If it be true that the Civil Code would have been construed to exclude the defendant's liability in the present case if the Zone had remained within the jurisdiction of Columbia it does not follow that the liability is no greater as things stand now. The President's order continuing the law then in force was merely the embodiment of the rule that a change of sovereignty does not put an end to existing private law, and the ratification of that order by the Act of August 24, 1912, no more fastened upon the Zone a specific interpretation of the former Civil Code than does a statute adopting the common law fasten upon a territory a specific doctrine of the English Courts. Wear v. Kansas, 245 U. S. 154, 157, 38 Sup. Ct. 55, 62 L. Ed. 214...