Sigler v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad

• Decision Date: 15 July 1937
• Docket Number: 53-1937
• Citation: 127 Pa.Super. 458,193 A. 362
• Parties: Sigler, Appellant, v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

193 A. 362

127 Pa.Super. 458

Sigler, Appellant, v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad

No. 53-1937

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

July 15, 1937

Argued April 13, 1937

Appeal from judgment of C. P. Allegheny Co., Oct. T., 1935, No 1857, in case of Hazel W. Sigler v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad.

Appeal from award of Workmen's Compensation Board.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.

Decision of Board reversed and judgment entered for defendant, before Reid, P. J., Dithrich and Richardson, JJ., opinion by Richardson, J. Claimant appealed.

Errors assigned, among others, related to the action of the court below in sustaining defendant's exceptions to the decision of the Board.

Judgment affirmed.

Clarence A. Patterson, for appellant.

P. K Motheral, with him Reed, Smith, Shaw & McClay, for appellee.

Before Keller, P. J., Cunningham, Baldrige, Stadtfeld, Parker, James and Rhodes, JJ.

OPINION

Parker, J.

The claimant, Hazel W. Sigler, was awarded compensation by a referee for the death of her husband, Bernard J. Sigler, and the award was affirmed by the Workmen's Compensation Board. On appeal to a court of common pleas the award was reversed and judgment was entered for defendant on the ground that Sigler at the time of the accident which resulted in his death was engaged in interstate transportation. We are of the opinion that the learned judge of the court below arrived at a correct conclusion.

The husband of claimant was employed by defendant as a yard clerk in the railroad yards at Rankin, Pennsylvania. His duties included checking the arrival and departure of cars in that yard, taking down their numbers and delivering orders for movement of cars. He began his employment on February 2, 1933, at four in the afternoon and in the normal course would have finished his day's work at midnight. His wife being unable to reach him by telephone during the evening went to the yard office at about 10:30 P. M. and found him unconscious, lying face downward on a desk in the yard office. It was a cold night and she found the door of the office open and no fire burning in the stove. He was suffering from la grippe and died of pneumonia on February 13th. It is assumed that his death was due to an accident suffered while in the course of his employment with defendant.

It was admitted that the defendant was a carrier of both interstate and intrastate commerce and it was shown by documentary evidence and by admissions of claimant that during decedent's employment on the day of the accident he gave orders with relation to and was concerned with cars moving in both interstate and intrastate transportation. It was found as a fact by the compensation authorities that he had been concerned in both classes of traffic on that day, but that there was not any specific evidence to show that he had engaged in interstate transportation after 7 P. M. Defendant showed that Sigler had advised his superior during the afternoon that he was ill but that he wished to complete his day's work, and he was instructed that it would not be necessary for him to go out of the office to take car numbers. He remained in the office for the purpose of receiving reports and issuing orders for the movement of cars as occasion arose. The yard was a large one in which much traffic of both classes was moved and the deceased was concerned with both classes.

In these workmen's compensation cases where we are called upon to determine whether the federal Employers' Liability Act or the state Workmen's Compensation Law applies, it is usually necessary to first ascertain whether the services are by one who is alternately engaged in each class of transportation or one whose duties as to both kinds of transportation are so inseparable that the interstate service is held to predominate. While it is a general rule that the status of the employee, with respect to interstate transportation is tested by the work that he is actually performing at the time and not by service being rendered in general (Illinois Central R. Co. v. Behrens, 233 U.S. 473, 34 S.Ct. 646, 58 L.Ed. 1051), it frequently occurs that the service is so related to the processes of or an instrumentality of transportation as to be practically inseparable from the operations or the use of the instrumentality in moving traffic in interstate commerce (Phila. & R. Ry. v....