Rainwater v. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 26 March 1945
• Docket Number: 37602.
• Citation: 21 So.2d 872,207 La. 681
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: RAINWATER v. CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO.

21 So.2d 872

207 La. 681

RAINWATER v. CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO.

No. 37602.

Supreme Court of Louisiana

March 26, 1945

W. T. Hollowary, of Jonesboro, for plaintiff-appellant.

Barksdale & Barksdale, of Ruston, for defendant-appellee.

FOURNET Justice.

We granted this writ of certiorari to review the judgment of the Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit reversing the judgment of the lower court awarding the plaintiff workmen's compensation under Act 20 of 1914 of the State of Louisiana as amended, for an eye injury sustained during the course of his employment by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company on the ground that at the time of his injury the plaintiff was employed in interstate commerce and as such within the exclusive purview of the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 35 U. S. Stats. at L. 65, as amended on August 11, 1939, 53 Stat. 1404, 45 U.S.C.A. � 51, because in its opinion the Court of Appeal declared the decisions of this court rendered prior to the adoption of the amendment of the act could have no application and declined to give them any consideration. La.App., 21 So.2d 428.

The case was submitted and tried on an agreed statement of fact wherein it was stipulated that the plaintiff, Oscar Rainwater, was, at the time of the injury, employed by the defendant, a railroad engaged in interstate commerce and serving several states, as a member of an extra gang of laborers who were hauling posts belonging to the defendant from a nearby wood and loading them on railroad cars preparatory to their shipment from Winnfield, Louisiana, to designated points along the defendant's system, there to be used in repairing the defendant's road bed. Of the six cars being loaded at the time of the accident, three were actually shipped to points within the state and three to points without, the exact destination of the car the plaintiff was working on when the accident occurred being unknown. It was further stipulated that if the plaintiff is entitled to recover under the workmen's compensation laws of this state, he is entitled to receive compensation at the rate of $14.35 a week for a period not to exceed 50 weeks; otherwise, that he is not entitled to recover at all.

We are advised by counsel for the defendant in their brief that the Federal Employers' Liability Act has never been construed by the Supreme Court of the United States since its amendment in 1939 and while we have not found any case in which that court does directly interpret the act as amended, we have found two of its very recent decisions that intimate the amendment has broadened the scope of the act in so far as employees are concerned. See Overstreet v. North Shore Corporation, 318 U.S. 125, 63 S.Ct. 494, 87 L.Ed. 656; McLeod v. Threlkeld, 319 U.S. 491, 63 S.Ct. 1248, 87 L.Ed 1538. We have also found a number of decisions in which the federal district and circuit courts have held that this amendment broadens the scope of the act (Edwards v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 7 Cir., 131 F.2d 366; Ermin v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., D.C., 36 F.Supp. 936; Agostino v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., D.C., 50 F.Supp. 726; Patsaw v. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co., D.C., 56 F.Supp. 897), as well as similar decisions in the appellate and supreme courts of various of the states (Southern Pac. Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 19 Cal.2d 271, 120 P.2d 880; Harris v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 158 Kan. 679, 149 P.2d 342; Missouri Pac. R. Co v. Fisher, 206 Ark. 705, 177 S.W.2d 725; Albright v. Pennsylvania R. Co., Md., 37 A.2d 870; Piggue v. Baldwin, 154 Kan. 708, 121 P.2d 183; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Potts, 178 Tenn. 425, 158 S.W.2d 729; Scarborough v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 154 Pa.Super. 129, 35 A.2d 603; Prader v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 113 Ind.App. 518, 49 N.E.2d 387; Great Northern R. Co. v. Industrial Comm., 245 Wis. 375, 14 N.W.2d 152; Taylor v. Lumaghi Coal Co., 352 Mo. 1212, 181 S.W.2d 536; Wright v. New York Central R. Co., 263 A.D. 461, 33 N.Y.S.2d 531, affirmed 288 N.Y. 719, 43 N.E.2d 97) writs of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court having been refused in several instances. Albright v. Pennsylvania R. Co., supra, denied at 323 U.S. ----, 65 S.Ct. 72, 89 L.Ed. 44; Industrial Board of State of New York v. New York Central R. Co. supra, denied at 317 U.S. 668, 63 S.Ct. 73, 87 L.Ed. 537.

As was pointed out in the case of Prader v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 113 Ind.App. 518, 49 N.E.2d 387, 389, 'Congress entered this field (of regulating the relations of common carriers engaged in interstate commerce and their employees) in 1906 when it enacted the first Employers' Liability Act, which, however, was subsequently declared unconstitutional because it attempted to regulate the liability of carriers in interstate commerce for any injury to any employee, even though his employment had no connection whatever with interstate commerce. The Employers' Liability Cases (Howard v. Illinois Cent. R. Co.), 1908, 207 U.S. 463, 28 S.Ct. 141, 52 L.Ed. 297. The second and present act became law in 1908, and until it was amended in 1939, 45 U.S.C.A. � 51 et seq., its scope was limited, by judicial interpretation, strictly to liability for injuries to employees who were actually engaged in interstate commerce when injured, leaving redress under the state law open in the event the employee was injured otherwise. * * * For cases within its scope, however, there was no remedy for the employee or liability on the part of the employer except as in said Act provided. * * * On August 11, 1939, Congress amended the Federal Employers' Liability Act of 1908.' (Italics ours.)

As originally written, the Federal Employers' Liability Act declared that 'Every

common carrier by railroad while engaged in commerce between any of the several States or Territories, or between any of the States and Territories, or between the District of Columbia * * * or any of the States or Territories and any foreign nation or nations, shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce, or, in case of the death of such employee, to his or her personal representative, for the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such employee; and, if none, then of such employee's parents; and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee, for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment.' To...