Pennsylvania R. Co. v. United States
| Decision Date | 24 May 1920 |
| Docket Number | 2518. |
| Parties | PENNSYLVANIA R. CO. v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
John Heron and Patterson, Crawford & Miller, all of Pittsburgh Pa., for plaintiff in error.
Roscoe F. Walter, of Washington, D.C., for the United States.
Before BUFFINGTON, WOOLLEY, and HAIGHT, Circuit Judges.
The government brought suit in the court below against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for an alleged violation of the Act of March 4, 1907, commonly known as the Hours of Service Act (34 Stat. 1415, 8 Comp.Stat. 1916, p. 9448), and recovered judgment.
There being no disputed question of fact, the case was tried without a jury. The respect in which the railroad company is claimed to have violated the act is that it required or permitted one of its employes to continue or to again go on duty after he had already been working for more than 16 hours in the aggregate, during a 24-hour period, without having had at least 8 consecutive hours off duty. The only question in the case is whether or not such employe was one of the class subject to the provisons of the act. It is the railroad's contention that he was not, because, as it is claimed, he was not during any of the before-mentioned time, 'engaged in or connected with the movement of any train. ' Section 1 (Comp. St. Sec. 8677). It appears that the employe in question, one Lathero, during the first part of the 16 hours worked at the company's yard in Hollidaysburg, Pa., as a car dropper. His duties as such consisted of riding on and controlling, by means of hand brakes, cars which were backed over an elevation in the classification yard, called a 'hump,' and which were then shifted by gravity to the various tracks, where it was intended that they should go to become parts of solid trains. When he had finished work at Hollidaysburg, he was brought to the Altoona yards, where he was engaged as a brakeman in connection with an engine which was used in moving cars in and about the yard for the purpose of making up trains, for the purpose of getting cars to points in the yard where they could be iced, and to places where they could be repaired. At no time during the work at Altoona did this engine make any movement along main-line tracks on which trains are moved by signal or under train dispatchers' orders, but the engine went from place to place in the yard on orders received from the yard master, but without protection of any sort or direction from train dispatchers. On some of the movements of the engine, 4 cars or less were attached, and on some occasions as many as 15 cars were moved at one time.
The railroad company's sole insistment is that the act applies only to movements of trains over main-line tracks, and not to mere yard movements, such as were made in this case. In construing the act, it must be borne in mind that its purpose, as expressed in its title, was to promote the safety of employes, as well as travelers, upon railroads. Of course, in carrying out this purpose, the mischief sought to be avoided was the mental and physical exhaustion of employes liable to result from permitting or requiring them to remain on duty for excessive lengths of time. The act provides that the term 'railroad,' as used in the act, shall include 'all the road in use by any common carrier operating a railroad.'
As is well pointed out in the opinion of the learned judge of the court below, no train is...
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