The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918. Page: 417
xv, 1025 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this legislative document.
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ERIE R. CO. V. DOWNS 414
with the act of moving or handling such cars as to be a part of it
or a necessary incident thereto. From what has already been said, it
is apparent that he had been engaged in shifting a string of cars from
yard A to yard E. It is conceded that some of the cars in that string
were engaged in interstate commerce. Some of the cars contained
freight transported from other states into the state of New Jersey, and
some of the cars contained freight which was being transported from
the state of New Jersey to other states, and remaining cars contained
freight which was being transported between points wholly within the
state of New Jersey; and it was stipulated that the next switching
movement, subsequent to the occurrence of the accident, which was
made by the switch engine and switching crew to which plaintiff be-
longed, consisted in moving three cars containing coal which had been
transported from the state of Pennsylvania into the state of New
Jersey.
The defendant insists that the plaintiff had completed the switching
operation he had been engaged in, and was injured while on the way
back to receive orders which would require the beginning of a new
operation. On the other hand, the plaintiff argues that the engagement
was not completed until he had rejoined his engine, and that his walk-
ing back for that purpose was necessarily the final act in the operation
first engaged in. The defendant relies upon Erie Railroad Company
v. Welsh, 242 U. S. 303, 37 Sup. Ct. 116, 61 L. Ed. 319, and insists
that the facts in that case are similar to those in this. In that case
the plaintiff was, and for some time had been, a yard conductor, en-
gaged in miscellaneous services in the way of switching and breaking
up and making trains under the orders of the yardmaster, and had
to apply frequently to the latter for such orders. On the night of the
accident the plaintiff, with a yard crew, took a freight car loaded
with merchandise destined to a point without the state into the classifi-
cation yard, and placed it on a siding, where it was left, then proceeded
a short distance further with an intrastate caboose, and left it on a
different track, then took the engine to a water plug and took on water,
and started back with the engine to the yard from which it originally
came, slowing down on the way near the yardmaster's office, where
the plaintiff jumped off to get further orders. In jumping, his feet
became entangled in signal wires, and he was thrown under the engine
and injured. It appeared that the orders he would have received, had
he not been injured on his way to the yardmaster's office, would have
required him immediately to have made up an interstate train. The
court held that he could not maintain his action, as he was not at
the time engaged in interstate commerce.
We do not, however, agree that the facts in that case are so similar
to the facts in this case that the decision in that must be regarded as
decisive in this. There were three distinct acts involved in that case.
The first was an act in interstate commerce. The second was in
intrastate commerce. The third act of taking on water may be disre-
garded as being preparatory to whatever work might next be engaged
in. The act of intrastate commerce intervened between the act of in-
terstate commerce and the injury. The Supreme Court of Ohio had
250 F.-27
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The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918., legislative document, 1918; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38821/m1/432/: accessed May 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.