Tennessee Cent. Ry Co. v. Pyle

• Citation: 156 S.W.2d 381
• Parties: TENNESSEE CENT. RY. CO. v. PYLE.
• Decision Date: 07 December 1941
• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee

156 S.W.2d 381

TENNESSEE CENT. RY. CO. v. PYLE.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

December 7, 1941.

Error to Circuit Court, Roane County; Pat Quinn, Judge.

Suit under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Mrs. Nannie Pyle, opposed by the Tennessee Central Railway Company, employer, for the death of petitioner's husband. To review a judgment granting petitioner an award, the employer brings error.

Judgment reversed and suit dismissed.

Walter Stokes, of Nashville, and Holladay & Clark, of Cookeville, for plaintiff in error.

Mae R. Stricklin, of Wartburg, and J. W. Stone, of Harriman, for defendant in error.

CHAMBLISS, Justice.

The petitioner in this compensation case is the widow of Pearson Pyle, who was killed by a train of the C. N. O. & T. P. Railway as it ran through the yards of Tennessee Central Railway at Emory Gap used jointly by these two Railroads, about 4 P. M., February 26th, 1938. Deceased was employed as yard foreman by the Tennessee Central Railway Company and was in the line of duty when killed. The defense of Tennessee Central Railway is that it is a "common carrier doing an interstate business" and that it was so engaged at the time when deceased was killed; that deceased was performing duties so closely related to interstate commerce as to be a practical part of such commerce; and the exemption expressly provided by Code Section 6856, subsection (a) of the compensation law, is invoked and relied on. That Section reads:

"This law shall not apply to whom. — This chapter shall not apply to:

"(a) Any common carrier doing an interstate business while engaged in interstate commerce."

The trial Court granted petitioner an award based on a monthly salary of $150. The amount is not controverted, if Tennessee Central Railway is liable under the Compensation Act.

There is practically no dispute about the controlling facts. The Tennessee Central operates over a line extending from its Emory Gap, Tennessee, yard, of which deceased was foreman, through Nashville to Hopkinsville in the State of Kentucky. It is, therefore, an interstate common carrier. This was a junction or connecting point with other lines at which cars were transferred therefrom to the Tennessee Central to be by it continued in transportation to destination.

Describing her husband's duties as foreman of this Emory Gap yard, petitioner said, "Well, he looked after the engines and kept the yard clear, called out the train crews, notified the crews when their train was called to go out," etc. She said he was not supposed to do the work himself, but "he was overseer to see it was done." She said he informed the men when the engines were ready to go out, that it was a part of his duty to "notify the crews when they were to go out."

On this afternoon, freight train No. 81 was scheduled to start for Nashville, its destination, at about 5 P. M. Some of the crew of this train occupied a caboose which was standing on a side track in this yard. In discharge of his duty, as above shown, foreman Pyle started to this caboose. In crossing the intervening main line track of the C. N. O. & T. P. Railway, he was struck and killed by a fast through train of that line. His body was thrown some 150 feet beyond the station platform.

While the destination of this train, No. 81, was Nashville, an intrastate point, it appears that at least six of the freight cars composing it, about one half of the whole number making up this train, were interstate shipments, en route from originating points in other States. One car of pulp and one of coal originated at Appalachian, Virginia; one of salt at Fort Huron, Michigan; one of merchandise at Spencer, North Carolina, and one at Saltville, Virginia. Now it was the crew of this train, whose duty it was to "make up the train" and to man it, that the deceased was in the act of notifying to begin this work when he was killed. It was while performing this part of the duties devolving upon him, the particular duty of summoning and giving orders to the crew of this train, made up of these carloads of freight in the process of transportation from points in various other States to Nashville, that this employee met his untimely death. Is it possible to deny that his employer was at the time "a common carrier doing an interstate business", and "engaged in interstate commerce"? We think not. And, if the employer was so engaged at the time, in the very particular as to which this employee was serving, then both alike were engaged in interstate commerce. Certainly, the Railway Company was engaged in interstate commerce. It was an essential incident of transportation of these cars that they should be placed in this train after they had arrived from other States en route to Nashville. And this yard foreman was also so engaged when, acting for...