A bridge carpenter employed by a railroad company who is injured
through the negligence of employees of the company while assisting
in unloading lumber, taken from an old bridge, on a car for
transportation over the road is an employee of the company within
the meaning of § 93, c. 23, of the General Statutes of Kansas
which makes railroad companies in that state liable to its
employees for damage done them through the negligence of its agents
or the mismanagement of its employees.
Motion to dismiss or affirm.
Pontius brought an action against the railroad company in the
District Court of Dickinson County, Kansas, to recover for injuries
sustained by him while in the employment of the company, and
obtained judgment for $2,000. The case was taken on error to the
supreme court of the state, and the judgment affirmed, whereupon a
writ of error was allowed from this Court, and, the cause having
been docketed, a motion to dismiss the writ or affirm the judgment
was submitted.
In the opinion of the Supreme Court of Kansas, reported 52 Kan.
264, the case is stated thus:
"Clifford R. Pontius was employed by the defendant company as a
bridge carpenter, and worked in that capacity at various points on
the line of defendant's road. A bridge was constructed across the
Verdigris River in Greenwood County. The false work used for
support in its construction was taken down, and the timbers of
which it was composed were hoisted and loaded into cars on the
bridge, to be transported to some other point on defendant's
Page 157 U. S. 210
road. The timbers were muddy and slippery. The mode of hoisting
them was to attach a rope or chain to the timbers, and to raise
them by means of a pile driver. When a stick was raised to a
sufficient height, a rope was thrown around the lower end of it and
a number of men, of whom plaintiff was one, would pull it out on
the car. A chain had been used on the end of the rope to hold
timbers which were being hoisted, and several pieces had been
raised in that way. The chain, however, was thrown aside, and one
piece was raised with the rope. When the men undertook to pull it
back on the car, the rope slipped off, the timber fell, and caused
the injury for which the plaintiff sues."
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the facts in the
foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 93, chapter 23, of the General Statutes of Kansas
(Gen.Stat.Kan. 1889, p. 415), provides:
"Every railroad company organized or doing business in this
state shall be liable for all damages done to any employee of such
company in consequence of any negligence of its agents, or by any
mismanagement of its engineers or other employees to any person
sustaining such damage."
In
Mo. Pac. Railway Co. v. Mackey, 33 Kan. 298, the
validity of this law was drawn in question on the ground of
repugnancy to the Constitution of the United States, and its
validity sustained. The case was brought here on error, and the
judgment of the state court affirmed.
Mo. Pac. Railway Co. v.
Mackey, 127 U. S. 205. As
to the objection that the law deprived railroad companies of the
equal protection of the laws, and so infringed the Fourteenth
Amendment, this Court held that legislation which was special in
its character was not necessarily within the constitutional
inhibition if the same rule was applied under the same
circumstances and conditions,
Page 157 U. S. 211
that the hazardous character of the business of operating a
railroad seemed to call for special legislation with respect to
railroad corporations having for its object the protection of their
employees as well as the safety of the public, that the business of
other corporations was not subject to similar dangers to their
employees, and that such legislation could not be objected to on
the ground of making an unjust discrimination, since it met a
particular necessity and all railroad corporations were, without
distinction, made subject to the same liabilities.
It is now contended that the plaintiff was a bridge builder,
that the legislation only applied to employees exposed to the
peculiar hazards incident to the use and operation of railroads,
that the railroad company could not be subjected to any greater
liability to its employees who were engaged in building its bridges
than any other private individual or corporation engaged in the
same business, and that the statute had been so construed in this
case as to make the company liable to its employees when engaged in
building its bridges, notwithstanding bridge building was not
accompanied, and had not been treated by legislation as
accompanied, by peculiar perils, thus discriminating against the
particular corporation, irrespective of the character of the
employment, in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment.
But the difficulty with this argument is that the state supreme
court found upon the facts that although the plaintiff's general
employment was that of a bridge carpenter, he was engaged at the
time the accident occurred, not in building a bridge, but in
loading timbers on a car for transportation over the line of
defendant's road, and
Missouri Pacific Co. v. Haley, 25
Kan. 35,
Union Pacific Railway v. Harris, 33 Kan. 416, and
Atchison, Topeka &c. Railroad Co. v. Koehler, 37 Kan.
463, 15 P. 567, were cited, in which cases it was held that a
person employed upon a construction train to carry water for the
men working with the train, and to gather up tools and put them in
the caboose or tool car, a section man employed by a railroad
company to repair its roadbed and to take up old rails out of its
track and put in new ones,
Page 157 U. S. 212
and a person injured while loading rails on a car to be taken to
other portions of the company's road were all within the provisions
of the act in question, and the court said:
"In this case, the plaintiff was injured while on a car
assisting in loading timbers to be transported over the defendant's
road to some other point. The mere fact that the plaintiff's
regular employment was as a bridge carpenter does not affect the
case, nor does it matter that the road was newly constructed, nor
whether it was in regular operation or not. The injury happened to
the plaintiff while he was engaged in labor directly connected with
the operation of the road, and the statute applies even though it
should be given the construction counsel places on it."
And see Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co. v.
Stabley, 62 F. 363.
We concur in this view, and the judgment is accordingly
Affirmed.
