Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Darrow

• Decision Date: 29 April 1918
• Docket Number: 2314.
• Citation: 250 F. 581
• Parties: POSTAL TELEGRAPH-CABLE CO. v. DARROW.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

250 F. 581

POSTAL TELEGRAPH-CABLE CO. v. DARROW.

No. 2314.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

April 29, 1918

Walter L. Hill and Knapp, O'Malley, Hill & Harris, all of Scranton, Pa., for plaintiff in error.

R. W Archbald, of Scranton, Pa., and Paul J. Sherwood, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., for defendant in error.

Before BUFFINGTON, McPHERSON, and WOOLLEY, Circuit Judges.

WOOLLEY Circuit Judge.

Willis Darrow was a lineman in the employ of the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company. While working among the wires on a line near the town of Summerville, in the State of Pennsylvania, Darrow fell and was killed. The circumstances tend to show that an electric shock was the cause of his fall.

Jessie G. Darrow, the widow of Willis Darrow, brought this action to recover damages for the death of her husband, alleging that her husband was the servant of the defendant and charging the defendant with negligence in failing to perform its duty as master to warn him of the latent dangers of his employment. The verdict was for the plaintiff. The defendant sued out this writ of error.

The plaintiff was a citizen of the State of Pennsylvania; the defendant a corporation of the State of New York. Jurisdiction of the District Court was based upon this diversity of citizenship. The defendant challenged the court's jurisdiction by attacking the service upon the return of the writ, and, failing in this, by moving for binding instructions. The court refused the motion and submitted the issue to the jury. The refusal of the motion is assigned as error.

The corporation sued is the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company, a corporation of the State of New York. The plaintiff charges in her statement that this corporation comprises the great telegraph and cable system extending over a large part of the world, with which all are familiar; that it is engaged in business in the judicial district of the trial court-- the Middle District of Pennsylvania-- wherein its offices are located and its telegraph lines are stretched and extended; that it there employed Darrow as a lineman and set him to work on its line from which he fell and was killed by reason of its negligence.

The defendant (which for convenience we shall call the New York corporation) denies that it is the telegraph and cable system alluded to in the plaintiff's statement, but maintains on the contrary that it is only a part of or a unit in the described system; that this system is composed of thirty-eight separately created and independently maintained telegraph corporations, many of which have the corporate name of Postal Telegraph-Cable Company, by which name the system also is known; that among these corporations is the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company, a corporation of the State of Pennsylvania (which we shall hereafter refer to as the Pennsylvania corporation); that this corporation owns and maintains the line in Pennsylvania; that it was Darrow's employer; and that if Darrow's death was due to negligence, it was the negligence of the Pennsylvania corporation and not the negligence of the New York corporation.

To this contention the plaintiff replies (as stated by the court in its charge):

'That the Pennsylvania company is only a unit of the system of the defendant (New York) company and holds a subordinate position, being but a means or instrument in furthering the business of the major corporation, the defendant New York company, or, that, in other words, the local Pennsylvania corporation is merely the agency of the foreign corporation, in conducting its business in this state, and that the latter, the New York corporation, is therefore engaged in business here.'

The question is: Which of the two corporations, bearing the same name, was Darrow's employer? The determination of this question involves, of course, the identity or diversity of citizenship of the real parties to the controversy, and goes directly to the jurisdiction of the court.

If the issue of employment arose out of conflicting testimony which would sustain a finding that either one corporation or the other was the employer of Darrow, the issue was properly submitted to the jury and its finding is conclusive. But if the testimony did not admit of opposite inferences and would sustain but one finding, the issue should have been decided by the court on the motion for binding instructions.

In view of the gravity of the question, we have given the evidence very full and very careful consideration. As the question is purely one of fact, we shall state the evidence only in outline.

It is important in the very beginning to distinguish between the Postal Telegraph-Cable system and the component corporate parts of the system which bear the same name, and to distinguish also between the assertions of pleadings and the evidence in respect thereto. The plaintiff, in declaring against the New York corporation, avers that it 'comprises' the system and treats it as maintaining and operating the system's lines wherever they go, either directly by its own servants or indirectly by the agency of subsidiary corporations. It is upon the theory that the New York corporation is the system, or, in fact, operates the system, that the plaintiff relies for proof that the New York corporation was Darrow's employer. We think the evidence shows the system to be something very different.

The Postal Telegraph-Cable system is not a corporation. It is in no sense a legal entity. So far as appears, it is without physical property and is not engaged in building maintaining, or operating telegraph lines. Nor is there evidence that it is otherwise a body having shares of its own or owning and holding shares of other companies by which it controls them. It is an organization or rather an arrangement by which thirty-eight separately incorporated though similarly owned corporations conduct the business of transmitting telegraphic messages through and beyond the states of their domicile. Neither the system nor the unusual number of corporations composing it appears to be a device by which to evade liability; it appears rather to be an arrangement based upon practical considerations growing out of the size of the business and the peculiar character of the business. These doubtless include the same that affect other large enterprises extending through many states and that tend to favor a multiplicity of local corporate bodies by which to carry on one comprehensive undertaking, such as the variety of...