Leslie v. Lehigh Valley Railroad

1 Pa. D. & C. 169, 1921 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 65
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Carbon County
DecidedJuly 12, 1921
DocketNo. 10
StatusPublished

This text of 1 Pa. D. & C. 169 (Leslie v. Lehigh Valley Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Carbon County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Leslie v. Lehigh Valley Railroad, 1 Pa. D. & C. 169, 1921 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 65 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1921).

Opinion

Barber, P. J.,

This is an appeal by the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, defendant, from the decision of the Workmen’s Compensation Board, filed June 12, 1918, affirming the award of the referee.

The claimant, William J. Leslie, was, on Dec. 24, 1917, employed as a brakeman by the defendant company in its yards at Paekerton, Carbon County, Pennsylvania.

Claimant, while so employed, in attempting to jump from a box-car, identified as Norfolk & Western, No. 64739, to another car upon an adjoining track, fell and sustained injuries for which he seeks compensation.

[170]*170This car had been received, along with others, on the previous evening from some point in Pennsylvania on the Mahanoy & Hazleton Division pf defendant’s road, and, at the time of the accident, was attached to four or five other cars, none of which were identified, nor was the ear to which claimant attempted to step when he fell.

The destination of this Norfolk & Western car No. 64739 was the City of Philadelphia, and it was one of a train moved over defendant’s road from the Packerton yard across the Delaware River to yards at Phillipsburg, in the State of New Jersey, and there delivered to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, by which company it was carried through the State of New Jersey for a distance not found to a point near Bristol, then across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania and on to the City of Philadelphia.

Under these facts, not disputed, defendant denies liability upon the ground that claimant, at the time of his injury, was engaged in interstate commerce. The only finding we have in relation to the nature of the employment of claimant at the time of the injury is that on the evening of Dec. 24, 1917, while engaged in handling this Norfolk & Western car No. 64739 in defendant’s yard, he fell and was injured. The award of the referee affirmed by the board must, therefore, be sustained or set aside as we determine from this single finding whether claimant was or was not engaged in interstate commerce.

The board allowed the claim, relying upon the case of Com. v. Lehigh Valley R. R. Co., 129 Pa. 308, affirmed in Lehigh Valley R. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 145 U. S. 192, 36 L. ed. 672 (1892). This was a corporation tax case, and in the later case was limited to the question therein involved, and neither followed nor applied in commerce cases.

In the case of Hanley v. Kansas City So. Ry. Co., 187 U. S. 617, 47 L. ed. 333 (1902), goods were shipped on a through bill of lading from Fort Smith, Arkansas, via Spiro, in the Indian Territory, to Grannis, Arkansas. The court say: “The transportation of these goods certainly went outside of Arkansas, and we are of opinion that in its aspect of commerce it was not confined within the state. . . . No one contends that the regulation could be split up according to the jurisdiction of state or territory over the track, or that both state and territory may regulate the whole rate. There can be but one rate, fixed by one authority, whether that authority be Arkansas or Congress.”

The following from the opinion of Mr. Justice Field in Pacific Coast S. S. Co. v. Railroad Commissioners, 18 Fed. Repr. 10, 13, is then quoted as disposing of the case at bar: “To bring the transportation within the control of the state as part of its domestic commerce, the subject transported must be within the entire voyage under the exclusive jurisdiction of the state:” Hanley v. Kansas City So. Ry. Co., 187 U. S. 617, 47 L. ed. 333 (1902).

The opinion then continues: “There are some later decisions contrary to those last cited (giving a list). But these decisions were made simply out of deference to conclusions drawn from Lehigh Valley R. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 145 U. S. 192, 36 L. ed. 672 (1892), and we are of opinion that they carry their conclusions too far. That was the case of a tax, and was distinguished expressly from an attempt by a state directly to regulate the transportation while outside its borders. And although it was intimated that, for the purposes before the court, to some extent commerce by transportation might have its character fixed by the relation between the two ends of the transit, the intimation was carefully confined to those purposes. Moreover, the tax ‘was determined in respect of receipts for the proportion of the transportation [171]*171within the state.’ Such a proportioned tax had been sustained in the ease of commerce admitted to be interstate. ... We are of opinion that the language which we have quoted from Mr. Justice Field is correct.”

The case of Wilmington Transportation Co. v. Railroad Commission, 236 U. S. 151, 59 L. ed. 508 (1915), involved the right of a state to prescribe rates for transportation between two points of the same state over a course which traversed the high seas. The court sustained the right of the state, in the absence of any Federal regulations unconnected with railroad transportation, but say (236 U. S. 151, 155, 156, 59 L. ed. 517) : “There is no passage through the territory of another state; the transportation, in its entire course, is subject to a single authority — either that of Congress or that of the state — and the latter would yield to the exercise of the former. The sovereignty of no jurisdiction is encountered. . . . And the same conclusion has been reached with respect to the fixing of rates for railroad transportation which, while beginning and ending in the same state, passes through the territory of another state. The regulation of such rates cannot be ‘split up’ according to the jurisdiction of the respective states over the track; there must be one rate fixed by one authority, citing Hanley v. Kansas City So. Ry. Co., 187 U. S. 617, 47 L. ed. 333 (1902).”

In Leibengood v. Missouri K. & T. R. R. C.o., 109 Pac. Repr. 988, 28 L. R. A. (N. S.) 985 (Kansas), may be found a full review of the Lehigh Valley R. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 145 U. S. 192, 36 L. ed. 672 (1892), and Hanley v. Kansas City So. Ry. Co., 187 U. S. 617, 47 L. ed. 333 (1902), cases, and in a note, L. R. A. 986, the editor says: -“As this is a matter on which the Supreme Court of the United States has the last word, and as this is its last utterance on the subject, it may now be laid down that transportation between points in the same state over a route, part of which is in another state, constitutes interstate commerce.” This note gives a long list of authorities following the case of Hanley v. Kansas City So. Ry.

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Related

Lehigh Valley Railroad v. Pennsylvania
145 U.S. 192 (Supreme Court, 1892)
Hanley v. Kansas City Southern Railway Co.
187 U.S. 617 (Supreme Court, 1903)
Commonwealth v. Lehigh Valley R.
18 A. 125 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1889)
Hall v. Pennsylvania Railroad
100 A. 1035 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1916)
Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Bolling
91 S.E. 154 (Supreme Court of Virginia, 1917)

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Bluebook (online)
1 Pa. D. & C. 169, 1921 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 65, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/leslie-v-lehigh-valley-railroad-pactcomplcarbon-1921.