BEUTLER
v.
GRAND TRUNK JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANY

U.S. | 1912-03-18
No. 194
224 U.S. 85 Supreme Court of the United States (1912) Caution
Also reported at: 32 S. Ct. 402 · 56 L. Ed. 679 · 1912 U.S. LEXIS 2281 · SCDB 1911-187
Cited by 37 cases

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Synopsis

A railroad worker was killed when employees of the same railroad negligently operated a car in the repair yard where he was working, and the railroad claimed immunity under the fellow-servant doctrine. The Supreme Court held that the worker and the railroad employees who caused his death were fellow-servants engaged in common employment, and therefore the railroad was exempt from liability, as the fellow-servant doctrine was an established rule of common law that courts could not disregard despite its harshness.

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Opinion of the Court
Mr. Justice Holmes

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court.

The deceased, Fetta, was at work in the repair yard of a railroad; other servants of the road, an engine and switching crew, ran a car needing repair from the general tracks into the special yard, and by their negligence killed him. There was no further relation between the parties than these facts disclose, and the question is certified whether they were fellow-servants within the rule that would exempt the railroad from liability in that case.

The doctrine as to fellow-servants may be, as it has been called, a bad exception to a bad rule, but it is established, and it is not open to courts to do away with it upon their personal notions of what is expedient. So it has been decided that in cases tried in the United States courts we must follow our own understanding of the common law when no settled rule of property intervenes. Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co., 215 U. S. 349. Northern Pacific R. R. Co. v. Hambly, 154 U. S. 349, 360.

The precedents in this court carry the doctrine as far as it is necessary to carry it in this case to show that the two persons concerned were engaged in a common employment. No testimony can shake the obvious fact that the character of their respective occupations brought the people engaged in them into necessary and frequent contact, although they may have had no personal relations. Every time that a car was to be repaired it had to be switched into the repair yard. There is no room for the exception to the rule that exists where' the negligence consists in the undisclosed failure to furnish a safe place to work in, an exception that perhaps has been pushed to an extreme in the effort to limit the rule. Santa Fe Pacific R. R. Co. v. Holmes, 202 U. S.

438. McCabe & Steen Construction Co. v. Wilson, 209 U. S.

275. The head of the switching crew and the deceased were as clearly fellow-servants as the section hand and engineer in Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Bourman, 212 U. S.

536. Northern Pacific R. R. Co. v. Hambly, 154 U. S.

349. It may be that in the state court the question would be left to the jury, Gathman v. Chicago, 236 Illinois, 9; Indiana, Illinois & Iowa R. R. Co. v. Otstot, 212 Illinois, 429, but whether certain facts do or do not constitute a ground of liability is in its nature a question of law. To leave it uncertain is to leave the law uncertain. If the law is bad the legislature, not juries, must make a change. We answer the certificate, Yes..

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Cited By (14 total)

  • Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (U.S. 1938)
    …C. & St. L. Ry. Co., 140 Fed. 777 (C. C. E. D. Ill.). See also Hough v. Railway Co., 100 U. S. 213, 226; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Baugh, 149 U. S. 368; Gardner v. Michigan Cent. R. Co., 150 U. S. 349, 358; Beutler v. Grand Trunk Junction Ry. Co., 224 U. S. 85; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Goodman, 275 U. S. 66; Pokora v. Wabash Ry. Co., 292 U. S. 98; Cole v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 43 F. (2d) 953 (C. C. A. 2). Lake Shore & M. S. Ry. Co. v. Prentice, 147 U. S. 101, 106; Norfolk & P. Traction Co. v. Miller, 17…
  • United States v. Mayer, 235 U.S. 55 (U.S. 1914)
    …[*67] 605; United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U. S. 253; Hertz v. Woodman, 218 U. S. 205, 211; American Land Co. v. Zeiss, 219 U. S. 47, 59; Matter of Harris, 221 U. S. 274, 279; Hallowell v. United States, 221 U. S. 317; Beutler v. Grand Trunk Rwy. Co., 224 U. S. 85, 88; Matter of Loving, 224 U. S. 183, 186; The Jason, 225 U. S. 32; Anderson v. Pacific Coast S. S. Co., 225 U. S. 187; Jordan v. Roche, 228 U. S. 436; Texas Cement Co. v. McCord, 233 U. S. 157; Illinois Central R. R. Co. v. Behrens, 233 U. S. 47…
  • Herron v. S. Pac. Co., 283 U.S. 91 (U.S. 1931)
    …s on the defendant. The Federal courts have enforced that principle, even in trials, in States which hold that the burden is on the plaintiff.” Central Vermont Ry. Co. v. White, 238 U. S. 507, 512. See, also, Beutler v. Grand Trunk Junction Ry. Co., 224 U. S. 85, 88. Nor is the provision applicable, which the appellant invokes, that “ the laws of the several States, except where the Constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision…

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