Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Mims, 242 U.S. 532 (1917)
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Scribd Government DocsAtlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Mims, 242 U.S. 532 (1917)
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Scribd Government Docs242 U.S.
532
37 S.Ct. 188
61 L.Ed. 476
ATLANTIC COAST LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in
Err.,
v.
LIZZIE M. MIMS, as Administratrix of the Estate of John J.
Mims, Deceased.
No. 242.
Argued December 4, 1916.
Decided January 15, 1917.
Messrs. Frederic D. McKenney, P. A. Willcox, L. W. McLemore, and
Douglas McKay for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. William S. Nelson, Jo-Berry Sloan Lyles, J. Team Gettys, and
John H. Clifton for defendant in error.
Mr. Justice Clarke delivered the opinion of the court:
On December 10th, 1910, John J. Mims, a car inspector in the employ of the
plaintiff in error, when attempting to cross a track to inspect a train of cars
which had just arrived, was run down and killed by a switching engine at a
public crossing in the city of Sumter, South Carolina.
In April following this suit was commenced by the filing of a complaint, which
charges actionable negligence and alleges that the defendant owned and
operated a line of railway described as wholly within the state of South
Carolina. There is nothing in the complaint tending to state a cause of action
under the Federal law. To this complaint the defendant filed an answer which is
a specific denial under the South Carolina Code of Civil Procedure and which
contains two separate defenses. The first defense admits that Mims was killed
at the time alleged, admits the paragraph alleging that the defendant, at the time
of the accident complained of, owned and operated the line of railroad
described as being wholly within the state of South Carolina, and denies all the
other allegations of the complaint. The second defense is one of contributory
negligence.
3
Upon this complaint and answer the case went to trial, and when the testimony
was all introduced the trial court granted a nonsuit, which was reversed by the
supreme court of the state with an order remanding the case for a new trial.
When the case was called for the second trial the defendant asked leave to
amend its answer by pleading 'gross and wilful contributory negligence' on the
part of deceased, which was granted, and the trial proceeded until plaintiff
rested her case.
Up to this time no claim had been made by defendant and no facts had been
pleaded or evidence offered by either party from which it could be inferred that
the deceased at the time of his death was engaged in interstate commerce, or
that the Federal Employers' Liability Act was in any manner applicable to the
case.
When the plaintiff rested her case on the second trial, the defendant for the first
time offered to introduce testimony which it is claimed, if admitted, would have
tended to prove that the train which the deceased was in the act of approaching
to inspect when he was killed 'was engaged in interstate commerce and that the
deceased was in this respect and otherwise engaged in interstate commerce.'
The trial court rejected this proffer of testimony on the ground that it came too
late and was not relevant to any issue tendered by the pleadings in the case. No
application was made for leave to amend the answer by adding the claim under
the Federal law.
The practice differs in the courts of the various states as to what testimony may
be introduced under 'a specific denial,' such as was filed in this case, and the
supreme court of South Carolina, while recognizing fully the ruling character of
the Federal Employers' Liability Act when the facts making it applicable are
properly pleaded, yet, upon full and obviously candid and competent
consideration, decided, as we have seen, that, under the settled rules of pleading
in that state, the evidence tendered was not admissible. The essential justice of
this decision, which is the fundamental thing, commends it to our favor. The
evidence admitted in the case shows that the train which the deceased was
about to inspect when he was killed was a local freight train, with a run
habitually, and on the morning of the accident complained of, wholly within the
state of South Carolina. If the relation of the deceased to the traffic which this
intrastate train carried was such as to give an interstate character to his service,
that fact must have been known to the defendant from the day the accident
occurred, and it could not possibly have been known to the plaintiff, and
therefore surprise and delay certainly, and possibly defeat of plaintiff's claim
under statutes of limitation, must have been the incvitable result of permitting
the introduction of the proffered testimony late in the second trial, without the
Federal right claimed from it having been 'specially set up and claimed' in the
answer of the defendant.
8
The plaintiff recovered a judgment, which the supreme court affirmed.
This epitome of the action of the state court shows that the claim under the
Federal statute now made was not presented until after the plaintiff had rested
in the second trial of the case after it had been to the supreme court, and after
the defendant, upon the opening of this second trial, had amended its answer by
adding a third defense, without mentioning or in any manner attempting to
plead the Federal claim. Even at this stage of the trial the assertion of the claim
consisted only in a tender of testimony, without any application to amend the
answer.
10
To become the basis of a proceeding in error from this court to the supreme
court of a state 'a right, privilege, or immunity' claimed under a statute of the
United States must be 'especially set up and claimed,' and must be denied by
the state court. Rev. Stat. 709, Judicial Code, 237 [36 Stat. at L. 1156, chap.
231, Comp Stat. 1913, 1214]. This means that the claim must be asserted at
the proper time and in the proper manner by pleading, motion, or other
appropriate action under the state system of pleading and practice (Mutual L.
Ins. Co. v. McGrew, 188 U. S. 291, 308, 47 L. ed. 480, 484, 63 L.R.A.33, 23
Sup. Ct. Rep. 375), and upon the question whether or not such a claim has been
so asserted the decision of the state court is binding upon this court, when it is
clear, as it is in this case, that such decision is not rendered in a spirit of evasion
for the purpose of defeating the claim of Federal right. Central Vermont R. Co.
v. White, 238 U. S. 507, 59 L. ed. 1433, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 865, Ann. Cas.
1916B, 252, 9 N. C. C. A. 265; John v. Paullin, 231 U. S. 583, 58 L. ed. 381,
34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 178; Erie R. Co. v. Purdy, 185 U. S. 148, 46 L. ed. 847, 22
Sup. Ct. Rep. 605; Layton v. Missouri, 187 U. S. 356, 47 L. ed. 214, 23 Sup.
Ct. Rep. 137.
11
The plaintiff in error mistakenly argues that, under recent decisions of this
court, it is not necessary to claim the benefits of the Federal Employers'
Liability Act in a pleading in a state court in ordet to obtain a review here of a
decision denying or refusing to consider such a claim. Reference to the
decisions relied upon shows that the Federal right was in terms claimed in the
petition in Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Wulf, 226 U. S. 570, 57 L. ed. 355, 33
Sup. Ct. Rep. 135, Ann. Cas. 1914B, 134, and Grand Trunk Western R. Co. v.
Lindsay, 233 U. S. 42, 58 L. ed. 838, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 581, Ann. Cas. 1914C,
168, and that in St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Hesterly, 228 U. S. 702, 57 L.
ed. 1031, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 703, the decision proceeds upon the statement that,
since the supreme court of the state held the Federal question sufficiently raised
and decided it, the objection that it was not saved was not open in this court.
While it is true that the reports show that in St. Louis, S. F. & T. R. Co. v.
Seale, 229 U. S. 156, 57 L. ed. 1129, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 651, Ann. Cas. 1914C,
156, and in Toledo, St. L. & W. R. Co. v. Slavin, 236 U. S. 454, 59 L. ed. 671,
35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 306, the Federal act was not specially referred to in the
pleadings, yet they were in such form that the trial court, either without
objection or over objection which the supreme court of the state refused to
sustain, admitted testimony making it necessary to apply the Federal act in
deciding each case. This, of course, was equivalent to holding that the
pleadings in the trial court were in a form to justify the introduction of
testimony in support of the Federal claim, under the system of practice and
pleading prevailing in the courts of the two states in which the cases were
decided. This brings these decisions clearly within the principle of the
conclusion we are announcing in this case.
12
While it is true that a substantive Federal right or defense duly asserted cannot
be lessened or destroyed by a state rule of practice, yet the claim of the plaintiff
in error to a Federal right not having been asserted at a time and in a manner
calling for the consideration of it by the state supreme court under its
established system of practice and pleading, the refusal of the trial court and of
the supreme court to admit the testimony tendered in support of such claim is
not a denial of a Federal right which this court can review (Baldwin v. Kansas,
129 U. S. 52, 32 L. ed. 640, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 193; F. G. Oxley Stave Co. v.
Butler County, 166 U. S. 648, 41 L. ed. 1149, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 709), and
therefore, for want of jurisdiction, the writ of error is dismissed.
