Hull v. Philadelphia & Reading Railway Co.

252 U.S. 475, 40 S. Ct. 358, 64 L. Ed. 670, 1920 U.S. LEXIS 1526

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 19, 1920
• Docket: 151
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Pitney

delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an action brought in a state court of Maryland under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act of. April 22, 1908, c. 149, 35 Stat. 65, as amended April 5, 1910, c. 143, 36 Stat. 291, by petitioner as administratrix of John M. Hull, deceased,, to recover damages because of his death occurring, as alleged, while he was employed by defendant in interstate commerce. The trial court directed a verdict in favor of defendant, the Court of Appeals of Maryland affirmed the resulting judgment upon the ground that the deceased at the time he.Avas killed was not in the employ of defendant within the meaning of the act of Congress, 132 Maryland, 540; and upon this federal question the case is brought here by certiorari.

The pertinent facts are not in dispute. John M. Hull, at the time he was killed and for a long time before, was in the general employ' of the Western Maryland Railway Company, an interstate carrier operating, among other lines, a railway from Hagerstown, Maryland, to Lurgan, Pennsylvania, at which point it connected.with a railway owned and operated by defendant, the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, which extended from Lurgan to Rutherford, in the same State.- Through freight trains were operated from Hagerstown to Rutherford over these two lines, and Hull was employed "as a brakeman on such a train at the time he received the fatal injuries. On the previous day a crew employed by the Western Maryland Railway Company, and of which he Avas a member, had taken a train hauled by a Western Maryland engine from Hagerstown to Rutherford, and at the time in question the same crew was returning with a train from Rutherford to Hagerstown. Before starting they received instructions from the yardmaster at Rutherford (an employee of defendant company) as to the operation of the train, including directions to pick up seven cars at Harrisburg. They proceeded from Rutherford to Harrisburg, stopped there for the purpose of picking up the seven cars, and while this was being done Hull was run over and killed by one of defendant’s locomotives.

The through' freight service was conducted under a written agreement between the two, railway companies, which was introduced in evidence and constitutes the chief reliance of petitioner. Its provisions, so far as they need to be quoted, are as follows:

“2. Freight trains to run through between Hagerstown and Rutherford in both directions and each Company agrees to supply motive power in the above proportions [based upon mileage] so as to equalize the service performed.

“4. Crews of each road to ran through with their engines over the line of the other Company.

<r5. Each Company to compensate the other for the use of the other’s, engines and crews on their line at the following rates per hour: . . . Time to begin at Rutherford and Hagerstown when crew is called for. . . . Time to cease when the engines arrive on the fire track at Rutherford and Hagerstown. ...

“6. The division of earnings of the traffic not to be disturbed or in any way affected by this arrangement.

“7. Each Company to furnish fuel and other supplies to its own engines and' crews; any furnished by one to the other to be upon agreed uniform rates.

“9. Neither Company to be expected to do the engine cleaning and wiping for the other; where done, a charge of seventy-five (75) cents per engine to be made-

“10. Each Company to be responsible and bear all ' damage and expenses to persons and property caused by all accidents upon its road.

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“16. Each Company to relieve and return as promptly as practicable the engines and crews of the other at ends of runs.

“17. Each Company to have the right to object and to enforce objection to any unsatisfactory employee of the other running upon its lines.

“18. All cases of violation of rules or. other derelictions by the employees of one Company while upon the road of the. other shall be promptly investigated by the owning Company, and the result reported to the employing Company, with or without suggestions for disciplining, the. employing Company to report to the other the action taken.

“19. Accident reports on prescribed forms to be promptly made of all such occurrences, and where a crew of one Company is operating upon the road of the other, a copy must be sent to the proper officer of each Company.

“20. Employees of each Company to be required to report promptly, on notice, to the proper officer of the other, for investigations of accidents, etc., the fullest cooperation to be given by the one Company to the other in all such matters.

“21. The employees of each Company while upon the tracks of the other shall be subject to and conform to the rules, regulations, discipline and orders of the owning Company. ”

We hardly need repeat the statement made in Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., 237 U. S. 84, 94, that in the Employers’ Liability Act Congress used the words “employee” and “employed” in their natural sense,’and intended to-describe the conventional relation of employer and employee." The simple question is whether, under the facts as recited and according to the general principles applicable to the relation, Hull had been transferred from' the employ of the Western Maryland Railway Company to that of defendant for the purposes of the train movement in which he was engaged when killed. He was not a party to the agreement between the railway companies, and is not shown to have had knowledge of it; but, passing this, and assuming the provisions of the agreement can be availed of by petitioner, it still is plain, we think, from the whole case, that deceased remained for all purposes— certainly for the purposes of the act — an employee of the Western Maryland Company only. It is clear that each company retained control of its own train crews ; that' what the latter did upon the line of the other road was done as a part of their duty to the general employer; and that, so far as they were subject while upon the tracks of the other company to its rules, regulations, discipline, and orders, this was for the purpose of coordinating their movements to the other operations of the owning company, securing the safety of all concerned, and furthering the general object of the agreement between the companies. 'See Standard Oil Co. v. Anderson, 212 U. S. 215, 226.

North Carolina R. R. Co. v. Zachary, 232 U. S. 248, is cited, but is not in point, since in that case the relation of the parties was controlled by a dominant rule of local law, to which the agreement here operative has no analogy.

The Court of Appeals of Maryland did not err in its disposition of the federal question, and hence its judgment is

Afirmed.