Snead v. Central of Georgia Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 25 March 1907
• Citation: 151 F. 608
• Parties: SNEAD v. CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Georgia

151 F. 608

SNEAD v. CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. Georgia, Eastern Division.

March 25, 1907

Syllabus by the Court

Alexander Akerman and John Randolph Cooper, for plaintiff.

Lawton & Cunningham, for defendant.

SPEER District Judge.

The plaintiff is the widow and administratrix of Walter Snead lately an employe of the Central of Georgia Railway Company. She is a citizen of Georgia, and has brought an action against the Central of Georgia Railway Company, a Georgia corporation. Her claim is for damages occasioned by the death of her husband. He was a bridgeman employed by the defendant company, and at the time of his death was engaged in repairing a bridge upon a line of its railroad in the state of Alabama. It is alleged that through the negligence of other employes of the company he was knocked from the bridge to the ground below and sustained injuries which resulted in his death. No diversity of citizenship is alleged, and the jurisdiction of the court is invoked solely upon the authority of the act of Congress approved June 11, 1906 (34 Stat. 232, c. 3073), entitled 'An act relating to liability of common carriers in the District of Columbia and territories and common carriers engaged in commerce between the states and between the states and foreign nations to their employes. ' This recent and most important legislation is popularly known as the 'Employer's Liability Act.' The language of that act material for our consideration is as follows:

'That every common carrier engaged in trade or commerce in the District of Columbia, or in any territory of the United States, or between the several states, or between any territory and another or between any territory or territories and any state or states, or the District of Columbia, or with foreign nations or between the District of Columbia and any state or states or foreign nations, shall be liable to any of its employes, or, in the case of his death, to his personal representative for the benefit of his widow and children, if any; if none, then for his parents; if none, then for his next of kin dependent upon him, for all damages which may result from the negligence of any of its officers, agents or employes, or by reason of any defect, or insufficiency due to its negligence in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, ways, or works.

'Sec. 2. That in all actions hereafter brought against any common carriers to recover damages for personal injuries to an employe, or where such injuries have resulted in his death the fact that the employe may have been guilty of contributory negligence shall not bar a recovery where his contributory negligence was slight and that of the employer was gross in comparison, but the damages shall be diminished by the jury in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to such employe. All questions of negligence and contributory negligence shall be for the jury.

'Sec. 3. That no contract of employment, insurance, relief benefit, or indemnity for injury or death entered into by or on behalf of any employe, nor the acceptance of any such insurance, relief benefit, or indemnity by the person entitled thereto, shall constitute any bar or defense to any action brought to recover damages for personal injuries to or death of such employe. Provided, however, That upon the trial of such action against any common carrier the defendant may set off therein any sum it has contributed toward any such insurance, relief benefit, or indemnity that may have been paid to the injured employe or, in case of his death, to his personal representative.'

To the declaration of the plaintiff the defendant has demurred upon several grounds: (1) Because the act is not a regulation of commerce within the meaning of the commerce clause of the Constitution; (2) because said act, if it be a regulation of commerce, is not limited to commerce with foreign nations, or among the several states or with the Indian tribes, but extends as well to intrastate commerce; (3) because interstate and intrastate employes are so commingled by this act that it is impossible to make it apply only to interstate employes, unless the court reads into the act something which Congress has not put there, and this the court may not do; (4) because it is a violation of the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.'

This demurrer draws in question the power and authority of the national Congress to enact a law, which in the minds of the plaintiff and her counsel has justified her action. It is perhaps difficult to magnify unduly the significant and consequential import of the question thus presented. Every corporation and person in the states and territories engaged in commerce between the states, or between the states and foreign nations, may be profoundly concerned. More immediate perhaps is the interest of more than a million of our countrymen, the employes of the railway and other corporations who serve the public and their employers in the mightiest, and-- after agriculture-- the most indispensable among the physical labors of civilized men. The settled policy of a great nation on this stupendous topic is at stake. The validity of a deliberate enactment of the national Legislature is drawn in question for determination by the final arbiter of the American system of government. Where reposes the august power of such final arbitrament? On a previous occasion I have attempted to answer. 'Whenever the rights of the citizen may be affected by a particular governmental act, whether it be an act of Congress or of the state Legislature, or of an executive or judicial functionary, either of the state or of the United States if it be capable of submission to a court having jurisdiction, the final and common arbiter of the constitutional question is the supreme judicial authority of the courts of the United States. ' In such cases the final decision of that authority is binding upon all the people, all the states, and all the departments of the general government. It is this magnificent significance of judicial power and usefulness which dignifies our government over that of every other nation. Lord Chatham declared of the British Constitution:

'The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow through it, the storm may enter, but the King of England cannot enter. All his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.'

But not so of the legislative power; for, said Mr. Phelps, in his eulogy of our Supreme Court:

'The great orator could go no further. He could not say the British Parliament might not enter the home of the subject, for all the judges of England are powerless in the face of an act of Parliament whatever it may be. It was reserved for the American Constitution to extend the judicial protection of personal rights, not only against the rulers of the people, but against the representatives of the people. And,' continued that great American lawyer, 'judges will be appointed and will pass away, one generation rapidly succeeding another; but whoever comes, and whoever goes, the court remains. Strong in its traditions, consecrated by its memories, fortified with the steadfast purpose of the profession that surrounds it, anchored in the abiding trust of its countrymen, the great court will go on, and still go on, keeping alive through many a century that we shall not see the light that burns with constant radiance upon the high altar of American constitutional justice. ' Speer's Lectures on the Constitution, J. W. Burke Co., Macon, Ga., pp. 101-103.

While this is true, and while it is also true, as De Tocqueville declared, that 'a more imposing judicial power was never constituted by any people,' in all our history the occasions when the action of Congress or the executive have been declared unconstitutional are singularly and happily infrequent. This is indeed inevitable from the division and co-ordination of our governmental power. There is a settled presumption in favor of the validity of every legislative act. This perhaps was originally ascribable to the lofty and even plane of intelligence, patriotism, and statesmanship discoverable from the earliest period of our history in the national Legislature. It is probable that in other times a few great men of distinguishing individuality were more conspicuous in that body than at present. It is also probable that at no other period has there been an average plane of intelligence, of careful education, of knowledge, of historical information, or familiarity with present conditions, and of keen perspicacity of those measures essential for the welfare of the people than that which exists today in our Congress. Nor is it less persuasive of the validity of national legislation that the executive and his constitutional advisers are regarded as worthy prescient colaborers with Congress in the recommendation and approval of such measures.

Whatever the reason, certain it is that the rule exists that courts will not adjudge an act of Congress invalid, unless in their judgment its violation of the Constitution is clear, complete, and unmistakable. Every reasonable judicial doubt must be resolved in favor of the law. Even where the legislation is annulled the Supreme Court has given unequivocal expression to this doctrine. In the Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U.S. 96, 25 L.Ed. 550, Associate Justice Miller, rendering the opinion, observed:

'When this court is called on in the course of the administration of the law to consider whether an act of Congress or of any other department of the

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