Seamer v. Great N. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 16 May 1919
• Docket Number: No. 21090.,21090.
• Citation: Seamer v. Great N. Ry. Co., 142 Minn. 376, 172 N.W. 765 (Minn. 1919)
• Parties: SEAMER v. GREAT NORTHERN RY. CO.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

142 Minn. 376

172 N.W. 765

SEAMER

v.GREAT NORTHERN RY. CO.

No. 21090.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

May 16, 1919.

Appeal from District Court, Ramsey County; Hugo O. Hanft, Judge.

Action by Sarah O. Seamer against the Great Northern Railway Company. Defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings granted, and, from an order denying a mother for a new trial, plaintiff appeals. Order reversed.

Syllabus by the Court

Laws 1915, c. 187 (Gen. St. Supp. 1917, §§ 4427-1 to 4427-8), is entitled ‘An act defining the liability of employers to their employés for personal injury or death.’ The act provides that ‘every company, person or corporation owning or operating, as a common carrier or otherwise, a steam railroad or railway in the state of Minnesota, shall be liable in damages to any employé suffering injury * * * resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents or employés of such employer,’ etc. It is held that the act is not unconstitutional upon the ground that its subject is not expressed in its title as is required by Const. art. 4, § 27.

The benefits of the act are given ‘any employé suffering injury while engaged in such employment,’ or ‘while engaged in the line of his employment.’ The defendant is a common carrier steam railroad operating lines within and without the state. It maintains an office building in St. Paul, two or three blocks distant from its railroad lines, which it uses as an administration building. The plaintiff was employed in the transportation office in a clerical capacity. In this office the movement of cars and trains was directed, and records thereof kept, and such work was essential in the operation of the railroad system. The plaintiff, while engaged in the line of her employment, was injured as she was getting into an elevator in the building through the negligence of the elevator boy who was her fellow servant. It is held that the statute applies to employés in her situation.

As so construed the statute is not unconstitutional as denying to the defendant the equal protection of the laws within the guaranties and prohibitions of the state Constitution or of the fourteenth amendment of the federal Constitution. The matter of classification of subjects of legislation is primarily for the Legislature. Its judgment will not be disturbed if the classification rests on a reasonable basis and is practical and is not arbitrary; nor is a statute invalid merely because some inequalities result. Samuel A. Anderson, of St. Paul, for appellant.

Watson, Sexton & Mordaunt, of Minneapolis, and P. J. McLaughlin, of St. Paul, for respondent.

DIBELL, J.

This is an action for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff while in the employ of the defendant. At the trial the defendant moved for judgment on the pleadings. The motion was granted. The plaintiff afterward moved for a new trial and appeals from the order denying it.

There are three questions:

(1) Whether Laws 1915, c. 187, is unconstitutional because its subject is not expressed in its title.

(2) Whether it applies to employés situated as was the plaintiff.

(3) Whether, if it does, it denies to the defendant the equal protection of the laws within the prohibitions of the state Constitution or the fourteenth amendment of the federal Constitution.

[1] 1. The title of Laws 1915, c. 187, upon which the plaintiff bases her cause of action, is ‘An act defining the liability of employers to their employés for personal injury or death.’ The defendant claims that the act is unconstitutional because its subject is not expressed in its title.

The act purports to apply ‘to every company, person or corporation owning or operating, as a common carrier or otherwise, a steam railroad or railway in the state of Minnesota,’ etc.

Article 4, § 27, of the Constitution is as follows:

‘No law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.’

The title must be such as to indicate the general scope of the statute. It must not be a cloak for inappropriate legislation. It must be appropriately indicative of the legislation for which it serves as an introduction. It need not be a complete index. State v. Droppo, 126 Minn. 68, 147 N. W. 829;State v. Erickson, 125 Minn. 238, 146 N. W. 364;State v. Shevlin-Carpenter Co., 99 Minn. 158, 108 N. W. 935,9 Ann. Cas. 634;State v. Board of Control, 85 Minn. 165, 88 N. W. 533, and cases cited; State v. Madson, 43 Minn. 438, 45 N. W. 856;State v. Cassidy, 22 Minn. 312, 21 Am. Rep. 765. The title is somewhat broader than the legislation enacted under it as was the title in State v. Droppo, suppra. A title broader than the statute, if it is fairly indicative of what is included in it, does not offend the Constitution. State v. Standard Oil Co., 111 Minn. 85, 126 N. W. 527. We hold that the subject of the act is expressed in its title. No claim is made that the statute contains more than one subject.

[2] 2. The next question is whether the statute applies to one in the situation of the plaintiff. The plaintiff claims that it does; the defendant that it does not.

The defendant is a railroad corporation organized under the laws of Minnesota with extensive lines of steam railroad within and without the state which it operates as a common carrier. It owns an office building in St. Paul two or three blocks distant from its railroad lines and in a business portion of the city. This building it uses as an administration building. The plaintiff was employed in a clerical capacity in the transportation office. This office has to do with the movement and sending out of trains and cars and the making and keeping of records thereof. Such work is essential to the operation of the railroad system. She was injured while engaged in the line of her employment as she was getting into a passenger elevator, solely through the negligence of the elevator boy, who, it is conceded, was her fellow servant. She does not claim a common-law right of action.

The railway fellow servant act of 1887, Laws 1887, c. 13, now embodied in Gen. St. 1913, § 4427, provides that--

‘Every company owning or operating, as a common carrier or otherwise, a railroad, shall be liable for all damages sustained within this state by any agent or servant thereof, without contributory negligence on his part, by reason of the negligence of any other servant thereof, and no contract, nor any rule or regulation of such company, shall impair or limit such liability.’

As originally enacted the statute applied to ‘every railroad corporation owning or operating a railroad in this state.’ The change in phraseology was introduced by Rev. Laws 1905, § 2042. This statute has been uniformly construed from Lavallee v. St. Paul, etc., Ry. Co., 40 Minn. 249, 41 N. W. 974, down to Nylund v. Duluth, etc., Ry. Co., 123 Minn. 249, 143 N. W. 739, as applying only to such employés as are subject to the particular hazards arising from the use and operation of railroads. The character of the employment has been made the test of liability; not the character of the employer. It is conceded that the plaintiff was not subject to any so-called ‘railroad hazard’ and has no cause of action under the act of 1887.

The plaintiff rests her right of recovery upon Laws 1915, c. 187. Sections 1 and 2 provide as follows:

‘Section 1. That every company, person or corporation owning or operating, as a common carrier or otherwise, a steam railroad or railway in the state of Minnesota, shall be liable in damages to any employé suffering injury while engaged in such employment; or, in case of death of such employé, to the surviving widow or husband and children of such employé; and, if none, then to such employé's parents; and, if none, then the next of kin dependent upon such employé, for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents or employés of such employer, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency due to the employer's negligence.

‘The damages recoverable in case of death to be distributed to the parties in interest in the same proportion as personal property of persons dying intestate.

‘Sec. 2. That every company, person or corporation owning or operating, as a common carrier or otherwise, a steam railroad or railway in the state of Minnesota, shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is engaged in the line of his employment, or in case of the death of such employé, to his or her surviving widow or husband and children of such employé; and, if none, then of such employé's parents; and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employé, for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents or employés of such employer, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency in such employer's appliances, machinery or apparatus furnished.’

Section 3 adopts the doctrine of comparative negligence and deprives the railroad of the defense of contributory negligence where its violation of a statute enacted for the safety of employés contributes to the injury. Section 4 deprives it of the defense of assumption of risks under like conditions. Section 5 makes a contract exempting the employer from the liability created void. Section 6 defines the word ‘employer.’ Section 7 provides that the right of action shall survive for the benefit of the widow, etc. Section 8 limits the commencement of an action to two years from the accrual of the cause of action. The statute is largely based on the federal Employers' Liability Act, U. S. Comp. St. §§ 8657-8665; 8 Fed. St. Ann. (2d Ed.) 1208 et seq.

The reference in the first section to an employer ‘owning or operating * * * a steam railroad or railway’ and to ‘an employé suffering injury while engaged in such employment,’ and in the second section a like reference to the employer and to an employé ‘suffering injury while he is engaged in the line of his employment,’ furnish the...