Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. v. Carnahan

86 S.E. 863, 118 Va. 46, 1915 Va. LEXIS 122
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedNovember 11, 1915
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 86 S.E. 863 (Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. v. Carnahan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. v. Carnahan, 86 S.E. 863, 118 Va. 46, 1915 Va. LEXIS 122 (Va. 1915).

Opinion

Caedwell, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

This action was brought by the defendant in error, Asa P. Carnahan, against the plaintiff in error, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company, to recover damages for personal injuries imputed to the negligence of the defendant. At the trial there was a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff for $25,000 damages, and to that judgment this writ of error was awarded.

The plaintiff was, and had been for some years prior to his injury, an employee' of the defendant as fireman on both freight and passenger trains, and on the date of his injury, March 7, 1913, was in the line of his duty on one of defend[48]*48ant’s trains which left Richmond, Ya., at 12:40 a. m., west bound, the train, besides the engine and tender, consisting of seven empty tourist sleepers, being moved “deadhead” (i. e., without passengers or freight) from Richmond, Ya., and destined to points without this State. Upon the arrival of the train at Doswell about two o’clock a. m., and as it approached that station, before crossing the tracks of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad Company at that point, it stopped on signal given by telegraph operator, J. W. Beasley, in the tower of Doswell, the signal being given on account of there being then a series or “cut” of fifteen or sixteen empty cars, coupled together, standing on the main track a short distance west of Doswell, just west of a county road crossing, which were being collected into a special train in charge of Conductor J. R. Shisler to be brought east to Richmond. This “cut” of empty cars had just been placed by Conductor Shisler on the main track, with the caboose on the west end of them, and no lights of any sort on the east end— that, is, facing the direction from which the train that plaintiff was firing approached; nor was there- a flagman placed there to protect said “cut” of cars, or to give warning of an approaching train, the engine that had placed them on the main track being then on a side track nearer to the station— Doswell.

After delaying plaintiff’s train, west bound, some six or seven minutes at the point where it had been stopped on signal, a signal was given it by Operator Beasley, from the tower or telegraph office, to proceed, meaning that the main track was clear, and the train proceeding ran into the east end of said “cut” of cars that had been left standing on the main track, as stated.

In the collision, the plaintiff was caught, from his knee of his right leg down, between the tank on the tender and the boiler head in the cab of his engine, and remained pinned in that position for forty-five or fifty minutes before he was extri[49]*49cated by the efforts of his fellow workmen. His leg was so badly mashed and burned that it eventually had to be amputated at a point between the knee and the thigh, and it is for those injuries and his consequent sufferings that he sues to recover damages.

The declaration contains four counts. The first two counts charge that plaintiff and defendant were engaged in interstate commerce, thus alleging a cause of action under the employers’ liability act of Congress. One of these was based upon the alleged negligence of Operator Beasley, and the other upon the alleged negligence of the train crew of the train standing at Doswell under Conductor - Shisler’s charge. The other two counts were based upon the same grounds of negligence, save that they omitted any allegation as to the parties being engaged in interstate commerce, thus alleging a cause of action under the law of this State. There was a demurrer to the declaration upon the ground that it was improper to combine in one suit a cause of action under the employers’ liability act of Congress and the State law, which demurrer was overruled, and this ruling is made the basis of defendant’s first assignment of error, but in the oral argument of the case before this court the assignment was waived.

The case was tried by a jury of seven, in accordance with the provisions of section 3166 of the Code of 1904. It was regularly summoned under the State laws and consisted of nine veniremen, which, after the plaintiff and defendant had each stricken off one venireman, left the jury of seven, which tried the case. Before the jury, however, had been examined on their voir dire, and before any members of the panel had been stricken off by either party, the defendant challenged the array of jurors and moved the court to quash the venire farias, upon the ground that the jury was not summoned, selected, formed and constituted as required by article I of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, which is as follows: “In suits at common law, where the value in eontro[50]*50versy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be other■wise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rulés of the common law.”

The motion to quash the venire was overruled and this ruling is made the basis of the defendant’s second assignment of error here; the contention being that the rights asserted in this suit are Federal rights, created by the Congress of the United States, and can only be tried by the common law jury of twelve, required by the seventh amendment to the Constitution, supra,-since the jury referred to in this amendment is the common law jury of twelve.

This contention is without merit. Section 6 of the employers’ liability act, as amended by the act of April 10, 1910, expressly provides that the Federal courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the State courts of cases arising under the act, and -that no case brought in a State court shall be removed to a Federal court. How else is a State court to exercise its jurisdiction in such a case except according to the procedure provided for in its own statues? The statutes of this State mate no provision for a trial in civil cases by a jury of twelve, except for some special reason when a special jury may be summoned under section 3158 of the Code, and the allowance or refusal of a special jury is a matter resting in the sound discretion of the court. A. & D. R. Co. v. Peake, 87 Va. 130, 12 S. E. 348.

Upon reason and authority it is not essential to the enforcement of a right created by a Federal law that provisions of the Federal Constitution regarding the administration of the Federal law be followed. The enforcement of a Federal right as it seems to us from the authorities, does not differ from the enforcement of rights created by other sovereignties than the United States, in that it draws with it the necessity of enforcement in the manner prescribed by the Federal Constitution for the administration of justice.

[51]*51It is well said by the learned counsel for the plaintiff in this case: “Rights created by the Congress of the United States become a subject of litigation between parties and are enforced as a basis of liability in the same manner as are other rights subsisting between litigants. The United States is a sovereign possessing all the attributes of sovereignty though exercising its sovereignty over a limited subject matter. One of the attributes of sovereignty is the authority to create rights and obligations between persons amenable to its jurisdiction. Those rights once created in no way differ from rights created by any other sovereignty.

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Bluebook (online)
86 S.E. 863, 118 Va. 46, 1915 Va. LEXIS 122, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chesapeake-ohio-railway-co-v-carnahan-va-1915.