Texas Pacific Railway Company v. Clara Hill

• Decision Date: 12 April 1915
• Docket Number: No. 482,482
• Citation: 59 L.Ed. 918,35 S.Ct. 575,237 U.S. 208
• Parties: TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. CLARA HILL
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

237 U.S. 208

35 S.Ct. 575

59 L.Ed. 918

TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v CLARA HILL.

No. 482.

Submitted March 1, 1915.

Decided April 12, 1915.

Messrs. George Thompson and T. D. Cobbs for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. H. C. Carter, Perry J. Lewis, and Magus Smith for defendant in error.

Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

As a corporation created by an act of Congress the plaintiff in error is inherently entitled to invoke our jurisdiction. Hence the motion to dismiss is without merit.

Both the record and the argument for reversal are voluminous, the latter covering about one hundred and thirty-five printed pages. We state some of the undisputed facts out of which the controversy arose and recapitulate such of the propositions relied on in argument as we think need to be considered to make clear our disposition of the case.

On December 22, 1911, while a passenger on a train of the Texas & Pacific Railway moving between Longview and Atlanta, Texas, a collison between two trains of the road took place which, it was alleged, occasioned the injuries to the defendant in error to compensate for which she brought this suit. She was traveling on a through ticket sold by the International & Great Northern Railway Company at Pearsall, Frio county, Texas, where the defendant in error resided and where she was employed as a clerk. The ticket covered a journey to Longview, where the International connected with the Texas & Pacific, and thence by that road to Atlanta. After the collision the defendant in error went to the home of her parents at Queen City near Atlanta, where she was treated by a local physician. Under his advice she went to a sanitarium at Texarkana. From there she returned to Queen City, remained under treatment a while, and went to her home at Pearsall. Under the advice of a local physician, and accompanied by him, she subsequently went to San Antonio for consultation with surgeons there. They advised an operation, but the advice was not immediately followed, as the defendant in error returned to Pearsall and remained there some time under the care of her physician. Not improving, again under his advice and accompanied by him, she went to San Antonio, submitted to an operation, and after convalescence returned in an invalid condition to Pearsall, where she was living at the time this suit was commenced on August 24, 1912, in the district court of Frio county, Texas, against both the International and the Texas & Pacific, the liability of both being based on an allegation that they were partners. The International pleaded to the jurisdiction on the ground that although it operated a road and had an agent in Frio county, it was not susceptible of being sued there for an alleged injury to a passenger. It was asserted that if the jurisdiction was based on a law of Texas of 1905, which was referred to, it did not apply, and if it did, the law was void because repugnant to the state Constitution for reasons which were named. In addition, in the same paper a denial of the alleged partnership was made and the exclusive liability of the Texas & Pacific for the injury, if any injury had resulted, was asserted. On the same day the Texas & Pacific, as a corporation created by an act of Congress, joined by the International, prayed and was granted the right to remove the cause to the district court of the United States for the western district of Texas, and consequently filed the record in that court on the 14th of October, 1912. On the same day the Texas & Pacific filed a paper styled in its heading, 'Answer of Defendant,' but on which was indorsed the title of the case and the words, 'Pleas, Demurrer, and Answer of the Defendant, T. & P. Ry. Co.' The paper contained four separate paragraphs, each signed by the attorney. The first, after referring to the plea to the jurisdiction of the state court filed in that court by the International, and after alleging that the Texas & Pacific had no road and did no business in Frio county, asked that if the plea of the International should be sustained, the suit should abate as to the Texas & Pacific. The second paragraph denied under oath the alleged partnership with the International. The third virtually demurred on the ground of no cause of action, and the fourth was an answer to the merits generally denying the averments of the petition, and setting up particular grounds of defense. On the 3d of January, 1913, the plaintiff moved to remand to the state court, which was resisted in writing by the Texas & Pacific in a paper in which it alleged that although it was an inhabitant of the northern district of Texas, it had the right to remove the cause to the district court of the western district. This pleading contained no reservation whatever of any question of jurisdiction of the state court, but, on the contrary, alleged that the removal was valid, had been joined in by the International, and that said road 'joins in this motion, contending that the case is one under the law removable, and which controversy between the parties this court has the sole and exclusive jurisdiction by virtue of the removal therein.' The motion to remand was denied. The case being at issue, and a term at which it could be tried having either commenced or being about to commence, the Texas & Pacific made a written application for a continuance to enable it to prepare its defense on the merits. The application was granted. Subsequently both the defendants, in somewhat amplified form, reiterated the pleadings...