Tennessee Coal, Iron Railroad Company v. Wiley George
| Decision Date | 13 April 1914 |
| Docket Number | No. 299,299 |
| Citation | 34 S.Ct. 587,58 L.Ed. 997,233 U.S. 354 |
| Parties | TENNESSEE COAL, IRON, & RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. WILEY GEORGE |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Alexander W. Smith for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 355-357 intentionally omitted] Mr. Reuben R. Arnold for defendant in error.
Wiley George, the defendant in error, was an engineer employed by the Tennessee Coal, Iron, & Railroad Company at its steel plant in Jefferson county, Alabama. While he was under a locomotive repairing the brakes a defective throttle allowed steam to leak into the cylinder, causing the engine to move forward automatically, in consequence of which he was seriously injured. He brought suit by attachment, in the city court of Atlanta, Georgia, founding his action on § 3910 of the Alabama Code, which makes the master liable to the employee when the injury is 'caused by reason of any defect in the condition of the ways, works, machinery, or plant connected with or used in the business of the master or employer.'
The defendant filed a plea in abatement in which it was set out that § 6115 of that Code also provided that 'all actions under § 3910 must be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction within the state of Alabama, and not elsewhere.' The defendant thereupon prayed that the action be abated because 'to continue said case of said statutory cause of action given by the statutes of Alabama, and restrictetd by said statutes to the courts of Alabama, would be a denial so far as the rights of this defendant are concerned of full faith and credit to said public acts of the state of Alabama in the state of Georgia, contrary to the provisions of art. 4, § 1 of the Constitution of the United States.' A demurrer to the plea in abatement was sustained and the judgment for the plaintiff thereafter entered was affirmed by the court of appeals. The case was then brought to this court.
The record raises the single question as to whether the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution prohibited the courts of Georgia from enforcing a cause of action given by the Alabama Code, to the servant against the master, for injuries occasioned by defective machinery, when another section of the same Code provided that suits to enforce such liability 'must be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction within the state of Alabama, and not elsewhere.'
There are many cases where right and remedy are so united that the right cannot be enforced except in the manner and before the tribunal designated by the act. For the rule is well settled that 'where the provision for the liability is coupled with a provision for the special remedy, that remedy, that alone, must be employed.' Pollard v. Bailey, 20 Wall. 527, 22 L. ed. 378; Galveston, H. & S. A. R. Co. v. Wallace, 223 U. S. 490, 56 L. ed. 522, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 205; Stewart v. Baltimore & O. R. Co. 168 U. S. 445, 42 L. ed. 537, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 105; Fourth Nat. Bank v. Francklyn, 120 U. S. 753, 30 L. ed. 828, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 757.
But that rule has no application to a case arising under the Alabama Code relating to suits for injuries caused by defective machinery. For, whether the statute be treated as prohibiting certain defenses, as removing common-law restrictions, or as imposing upon the master a new and larger liability, it is in either event evident that the place of bringing the suit is not part of the cause of action,—the right and the remedy are not so inseparably united as to make the right dependent upon its being enforced in a particular tribunal. The cause of action is transitory, and like any other transitory action can be enforced 'in any court of competent jurisdiction within the state of Alabama . . .' But the owner of the defective machinery causing the injury may have removed...
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