Southern Railway Company v. Miller

• Decision Date: 04 April 1910
• Docket Number: No. 122,122
• Citation: Southern Railway Company v. Miller, 217 U.S. 209, 30 S.Ct. 450, 54 L.Ed. 732 (1910)
• Parties: SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Ed. S. Hurst, Benj. Voils, and Tom Cox, Plffs. in Err., v. W. M. MILLER
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

217 U.S. 209

30 S.Ct. 450

54 L.Ed. 732

SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Ed. S. Hurst, Benj. Voils, and Tom Cox, Plffs. in Err.,

v W. M. MILLER.

No. 122.

Argued March 3, 1910.

Decided April 4, 1910.

Messrs. John J. Strickland, Alfred P. Thom, Hamilton McWhorter, and McDaniel, Alston, & Black for plaintiffs in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 209-211 intentionally omitted]Messrs. Reuben R. Arnold and Reuben Arnold for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 211-213 intentionally omitted]Mr. Justice Day delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant in error, plaintiff below, brought suit in the city court of Hall county, Georgia, against the Southern Railway Company, a corporation of Virginia, and certain individual citizens of Georgia, to recover damages for personal in- juries received by him while in the employ of the railroad company as an engineer.A recovery in the court of original jurisdiction was affirmed in the court of appeals of Georgia(3 Ga. App. 410, 59 S. E. 1115), and the case is brought here to review certain Federal questions presented by the record.These are, first, that the state court erred in refusing to remove the case to the United States circuit court upon the petition of the plaintiff in error; second, as it appeared that the case had once been removed to the Federal court and was dismissed by the plaintiff, the state court should have held that the right to further prosecute in that court was lost, and the jurisdiction completely and finally transferred to the Federal court.

In order to determine these questions, it is necessary to state how the case arose.Originally this suit was brought against the Southern Railway Company alone, to recover damages for injuries charged to have been inflicted, because the train upon which the plaintiff was engineer was permitted to run from the main track through an open switch, onto a siding, where another train was standing, when, by reason of the rules and regulations of the company in the circumstances set forth, plaintiff's train had the right of way upon the track, and, because the switch was turned the wrong way, plaintiff's train was thrown into the siding upon which the other train was standing, and in order to avoid more serious injury, plaintiff jumped from his engine, and was greatly injured.

The first suit, being against the Southern Railway Company alone, was removed to the United States circuit court, the transcript of record was duly filed, and the company answered.Thereafter the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the case, and later began the present case against the Southern Railway Company for the same injury, and enjoined Cox, Voils, and Hurst as partiesdefendant.These parties were, respectively, the conductor of the train with which plaintiff's train collided, the engineer and front brakeman of said train.The negligence charged was that the brakeman negligently failed to turn the switch back to the main line after his train went into the sid- ing; that Cox, the conductor, was in control and management of the train, and under the duty of seeing that the switch was turned to the main line; and that Voil, the engineer, after he got his engine into the siding, with the exercise of ordinary care should have known that the switch was turned wrong, and yet failed to take any steps to report the situation or to have it remedied.It was further alleged that the individual defendants, in causing the switch to be unlocked and turned from the main line, were guilty of negligence, which was the negligence of the railroad company, inasmuch as they represented the company in the operation of the train which collided with the plaintiff's train.It is also alleged that the individual defendants should have flagged the plaintiff's train if, for any reason, the switch remained turned to the side track.

The petition for removal contained no charge that the attempt to join the defendants was for the purpose of fraudulently avoiding the jurisdiction of the United States court, or with a view to defeat a removal thereto.The case...