Seaboard Air Line Railway v. Clara Pakgett

• Decision Date: 22 March 1915
• Docket Number: No. 710,710
• Parties: SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILWAY, Plff. in Err., v. CLARA V. PAKGETT, Administratrix of the Estate of Lewis H. Padgett, Deceased
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

236 U.S. 668

35 S.Ct. 481

59 L.Ed. 777

SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILWAY, Plff. in Err.,

v CLARA V. PAKGETT, Administratrix of the Estate of Lewis H. Padgett, Deceased.

No. 710.

Argued February 24, 1915.

Decided March 22, 1915.

Mr. J. B. S. Lyles for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 669 intentionally omitted] Messrs. W. Boyd Evans, James H. Fanning, W. H. Sharpe, and A. D. Martin for defendant in error.

Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

Is there jurisdiction to review the action of the court below in affirming the judgment of the trial court, which was entered on the verdict of a jury, and if so, was error below committed, are the questions for decision (——S. C. ——, 83 S. E. 633).

The suit was brought to recover damages alleged to have been suffered by the death of Lewis H. Padgett, a railroad engineer in the service of the defendant company, the plaintiff in error, caused by his having fallen during the early morning hours into a drop pit in a locomotive roundhouse belonging to the company. The negligence charged was not only the failure to cover the pit, but also to properly light the roundhouse. If our jurisdiction attaches, it can only be because the right to recover was based upon the act of Congress commonly known as the employers' liability act, it having been averred that the deceased was an employee of the company, actually engaged in interstate commerce. But, as pointed out in St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. McWhirter,229 U. S. 265, 275, 57 L. ed. 1179, 1185, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 858, although the cause of action relied upon was based upon the Federal statute, nevertheless, 'as it comes here from a state court, our power to review is controlled by Rev. Stat. § 709 [§ 237, Judicial Code (36 Stat. at L. 1156, chap. 231, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 1214)] and we may therefore not consider merely incidental questions not Federal in character; that is, which do not in their essence involve the existence of the right in the plaintiff to recover under the Federal statute to which his recourse by the pleadings was exclusively confined, or the converse; that is to say, the right of the defendant to be shielded from responsibility under that statute because, when properly applied, no liability on his part from the statute would result. Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Duvall, 225 U. S. 477, 56 L. ed. 1171, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 790; St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Taylor, 210 U. S. 281, 52 L. ed. 1061, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 616, 21 Am. Neg. Rep. 464.' The existence of jurisdiction to review under the principles just stated depends not merely upon form, but upon substance; that is, in this class of cases, as in others, the general rule controls that power to review cannot arise from the mere assertion of a formal right when such asserted right is so wanting in foundation and unsubstantial as to be devoid of all merit and frivolous. There is no doubt that the assignments of error on their face embrace Federal questions which give jurisdiction to review. We therefore exercise jurisdiction and come to consider the questions on their merits, incidentally pointing out in doing so the reasons why the questions are not of such a frivolous character as not to afford a basis for the authority to examine and dispose of them. The trial court gave to the jury every instruction concerning the meaning and application of the act of Congress asked by the company, and therefore there is no ground whatever for saying that the view of the statute relied upon by the company was not given to the jury. But, despite this fact, two of the nine assignments of error insist that the jury was misled concerning the doctrine of assumption of the risk applicable under the statute because of two statements as to the law on the subject, made by the court to the jury over the exception of the defendant, which are asserted to have been confusing because possibly conflicting with each...