Graham v. Thompson

212 S.W.2d 770, 357 Mo. 1133, 1948 Mo. LEXIS 726
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMay 27, 1948
DocketNo. 39898.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 212 S.W.2d 770 (Graham v. Thompson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Graham v. Thompson, 212 S.W.2d 770, 357 Mo. 1133, 1948 Mo. LEXIS 726 (Mo. 1948).

Opinions

*1143 CONKLING, J.

[772] This case was first argued and submitted in Division 2 of this Court. After opinion in that Division, of the •Court’s own motion, the case was transferred to the Court En Banc. After reargument and resubmission there, the case came to the 'vmte.r upon- re-assignment. After opinion in the Court en banc, a rehearing was granted. The case was again re-argued and resubmitted at our January, 1948 session, and again came to the writer upon re-assignment. .

Thomas Graham, a switchman employee of the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company (hereinafter called Terminal), in the eourse of his regular duties as such switchman; was assisting- his regular Terminal switching crew in an interstate switching movement for Terminal in the yards of his employer about 5 p. m., on August 27, 1943. While so engaged he was struck and killed by Frisco passenger train No. 20 moving generally west on track 2 through Terminal’s yards on its way to the Union Station. The passenger. train was operated by defendant Thompson, as trustee of St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company. In this action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (45 U. S. C. A. See. 51 et seq.) his wife, plaintiff below, as administratrix, recovered a judgment of $20,000.00 against both Frisco and Terminal. Each railroad appealed and each urges that its separate motion for a directed verdict should have been sustained.

Plaintiff concedes Graham was in fact a Terminal employee but pleaded and contends that iñasmuch as Terminal owned the *1144 tracks through the Terminal yards upon which Frisco' was then operating its train, and that Terminal by written contract of lease had granted Frisco the right to operate its train’ thereover, that both railroads are liable to plaintiff under the Federal Act by virtue of Mo. R. S. A. Sec. 5163, the Missouri lessor-lessee statute. That statute, iii part, ‘ provides “whenever any . . -. railroad . . '. shall lease'its road or tracks or any part thereof to any other company dr corporation, . . . the company or corporation so leasing its road, . ' . . shall remain liable for all acts, debts, claims, demands, judgments and'liabilities of the lessee or licensee, . ’. . the same as if it (the lessor or licensor) operated the road, itself; and sileh lessee or licensee shall likewise be held liable and may sue and be sued in all cases- and for the sáme causes, and in the same manner, as if operating its own road. . . . And suit may be brought upon any such claim, debt, lien or liability against either the corporation to whom any such sale, transfer, lease, or ’ assignment has been made, . . . or against both such corporations, jointly, at the option of such claimant.” Plaintiff relies on that statute and upon such cases as North Carolina Railroad Company v. Zachary, 232 U. S. 248, 34 S. Ct. 305, 58 L. Ed. 591; Spaw v. Kansas [773] City Terminal Ry. Co., 198 Mo. App. 552, 201 S. W. 927; Smith V. Thompson, (Mo. Sup.) 182 S. W. (2d) 63; Miller v. Terminal Railway Assn, of St. Louis, 349 Mo. -944, 163 S. W. (2d) 1034; and Francis V; Terminal Railway Assn, of St. Louis, 354 Mo. 1232, 193 S. W. (2d) 909. Plaintiff says she made a case for the jury upon a failure to give a warning under the humanitarian theory of negligence.

Frisco contends that-as Graham was not its employee there is no liability against it under the Federal Act; that in the’ switching operation Graham was performing no service for Frisco and that it had no control or right of control over Terminal’s operations or over Graham; that as to it Terminal was an independent contractor in the switching movement; that the Federal Act uses the -words “ employed” and “employee” in their "natural sense to describe the conventional relationship; that in that the relationship of employer and employee did not in fact exist between it and Graham the Federal Act cannot apply to it; that under the instant facts the lessor-lessee statute cannot make an employee of the lessor road also an employee of the lessee railroad and- that the Zachary case, supra, and other cases purporting to follow the Zachary case, do not compel such holding. Frisco relies on such cases.as Hull v. Philadelphia & R. Ry. Co., 252 U. S. 475, 40 S. Ct. 358; Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio’ R. Co., 237 U. S. 84, 35 S. Ct. 491, 59 L. Ed. 849; Stevenson v. Lake Terminal R. Co., 42 Fed. (2d) 357, and others. Terminah concedes that by the lessor-lessee statute it is liable for Frisco’s negligence, if any, but contends no jury case was made.

*1145 The “underlying basic reason for the enactment of the Federal Employers’ Liability Aet was to secure uniformity .of both right and remedy in interstate commerce cases without regard to whether the action is brought in any state or in any federal court. Mooney v. Terminal R. Assn. of St. Louis, 352 Mo. 245, 176 S. W. (2d) 605; C. M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Coogan, 271 U. S. 472, 474, 46 S. Ct. 564, 70 L. Ed. 1041. Both the state and federal courts were given concurrent jurisdiction by the Federal Act and the right of- removal was withheld. To attain such uniformity in all courts there had to be a dominant statute. Its purpose was to supplant the numerous state statutes and their-varying applications in each state as to who could recover, against what railroad and Under what circumstances. Congress chose to and did enact such a dominant statute. The Federal Employers’ Liability Act “withdrew all. injuries, to railroad employees in interstate- commerce from the operation of the varying state laws” and put all such actions under a national law of uniform operation in all states. New York Central R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U. S. 147, 37 S. Ct. 546, 61 L. Ed. 1045. . I

The very aet of Congress, therefore, under which plaintiff now seeks to recover took possession of and preempted the entire field of liability of carriers by railway for injuries sustained by their employees in interstate commerce and that act superseded all state laws and statutes by Which such liability could be sought to be fastened upon rail carriers in such cases. Second Employers’ Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 32 S. Ct.. 169, 56 L. Ed.- 327; Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co. v. Stapleton, 279 .U. S. 587, 590, 73 L. Ed. 861, 864; Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul R. .Co. v. Coogan, supra; Toledo, St. Louis •& W..R. Co. .v Allen, 276.XL S. 165,-48 S. Ct. 215, 72 L. Ed. 513;. New York Central R. Co., v. Winfield, supra; Mooney v. Terminal Railway Assn.- of St. Louis, supra. The rights and liabilities of parties to an action under the Federal Employers ’ Liability Aet must be determined by the provisions of that Act. Hoch v. St. Louis & San Francisco R. Co., 315 Mo. 1199; Toledo .St. Louis & W. R. Co. v.- -Allen, supra; Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul R. Co. v. Coogan, supra; Brady v. Southern Ry. Co., 320 U. S. 476, 64 S. Ct. 232.

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Bluebook (online)
212 S.W.2d 770, 357 Mo. 1133, 1948 Mo. LEXIS 726, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/graham-v-thompson-mo-1948.