Texas Railway Company v. Cox/Opinion of the Court

by Melville Fuller

United States Supreme Court

145 U.S. 593

Texas Railway Company  v.  Cox

The Texas & Pacific Railway Company is a corporation deriving its corporate powers from acts of congress, and was held in Pacific Railroad Removal Cases, 111 U.S. 1, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1113, to be entitled, under the act of March 3, 1875, to have suits brought against it in the state courts removed to the circuit courts of the United States on the ground that they were suits arising under the laws of the United States. The reasoning was that this must be so since the company derived its powers, functions, and duties from those acts, and suits against it necessarily involved the exercise of those powers, functions, and duties as an original ingredient.

These receivers were appointed by the circuit court, and derived their powerfrom and discharged their duties subject to its orders. Those orders were entered, and all action of the court in the premises taken, by virtue of judicial power possessed and exercised under the constitution and laws of the United States.

In respect of liability, such as is set up here, the receiver stands in the place of the corporation. As observed by Mr. Justice BROWN, delivering the opinion of the court in McNulta v. Lochridge, 141 U.S. 327, 331, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 11: 'Actions against the receiver are in law actions against the receivership, or the funds in the hands of the receiver, and his contracts, misfeasances, negligences, and liabilities are official, and not personal, and judgments against him as receiver are payable only from the funds in his hands.'

Hence it has been often decided that the jurisdiction of the court appointing a receiver is necessarily exclusive, and that actions at law cannot be prosecuted against him except by leave of that court. Barton v. Barbour, 104 U.S. 126; Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 203; Thompson v. Scott, 4 Dill, 508, 512.

This was the general rule in the absence of statute, but by the third section of the act of congress of March 3, 1887, (24 St. p. 552, c. 373,) as corrected by the act of August 13, 1888, (25 St. pp. 433, 436, c. 866,) it is provided— 'That every receiver or manager of any property, appointed by any court of the United States, may be sued in respect of any act or transaction of his in carrying on the business connected with such property, without the previous leave of the court in which such receiver or manager was appointed; but such suit shall be subject to the general equity jurisdiction of the court in which such receiver or manager was appointed, so far as the same shall be necessary to the ends of justice.'

And we are of opinion that although the injury was inflicted January 6, 1887, the suit, which was commenced on the 3d of September of that year, comes within the section.

McNulta v. Lochridge, supra, was an action brought in a state court July 13, 1887, against the receiver of a railway, to recover for the death of certain persons, alleged to have been caused by his negligence in the operation of the road, on January 15, 1887. No leave to sue had been granted by the court of the appointment of the receiver, but we held that section 3 applied, and there was no foundation for the position that the receiver was not liable to suit without such permission.

'That the last paragraph of section five of the act of congress approved March third, eighteen hundred and seventy-five, entitled 'An act to determine the jurisdiction of circuit courts of the United States and to regulate the removal of eauses from state courts, and for other purposes.' and section six hundred and forty of the Revised Statutes, and all laws and parts of laws in conflict with the provisions of this act, be, and the same are hereby, repealed: provided, that this act shall not affect the jurisdiction over or disposition of any suit removed from the court of any state, or suit commenced in any court of the United States, before the passage hereof, except as otherwise expressly provided in this act.'

It is argued that, under this proviso, the receivership suit, having been commenced before and being pending at the time of the passage of the act, was excepted from its provisions, and that leave to sue was still required. We do not think so. The proviso was intended to prevent the loss of jurisdiction by reason of the repeal of prior acts and parts of acts, but it does not limit the operation of the express provisions of section 3.

As jurisdiction without leave is maintainable through the act of congress, and as the receivers became such by reason of, and derived their authority from, and operated the road in obedience to, the orders of the circuit court in the exercise of its judicial powers, we hold that jurisdiction existed because the suit was one arising under the constitution and laws of the United States; and this is in harmony with previous decisions. Buck v. Colbath, 3 Wall. 334; Feibelman v. Packard, 109 U.S. 421, 3 Sup. Ct. Rep. 289; Bock, v. Perkins, 139 U.S. 628, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 677. The objections raised in respect of the matter of diverse citizenship cannot, therefore, be sustained.

It is said further that jurisdiction over the receivers, personally, was lacking, because defendant Brown resided in the northern district of Texas and defendant Sheldon was an inhabitant of Louisiana; and that under the act of 1887 the action could not be instituted in a district whereof neither of the defendants was an inhabitant. If the suit be regarded as merely ancillary to the receivership, the objection is without force, but, irrespective of that, this immunity is a personal privilege which may be waived. The defendants not only demurred, but answered, and the second ground of demurrer was that the petition did not set out a cause of action. Under such circumstances they could not thereafter challenge the jurisdiction of the court on the ground that the suit had been brought in the wrong district. Railway Co. v. McBride, 141 U.S. 127, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 982; Construction Co. v. Fitzgerald, 137 U.S. 98, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 36; Bank v. Morgan, 132 U.S. 141, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 37.

The statutory limitation in Louisiana and in Texas, upon the right of action asserted in this case, was one year, and that defense was interposed to the amended petition, which was not filed until that period had elapsed. It is put, in argument, upon two grounds: (1) That jurisdiction did not appear by the original petition; (2) that the amended petition set up a new cause of action. Assuming that the first ground is open to consideration, as brought to our attention, it is sufficient to say that, in the light of the observations already made, the fact that jurisdiction existed was sufficiently apparent on the first pleading. As to the second ground, it is true that if the amended petition, which may, perhaps, be treated as equivalent to a second count in a declaration, had brought for ward a new and independent cause of action, the bar might apply to it, (Sicard v. Davis, 6 Pet. 124;) yet, as the transaction set forth in both counts was the same, and the negligence charged in both related to defective conditions in respect of coupling cars in safety, we are not disposed by technical construction to hold that the second count alleged another and different negligence from the first.

Counsel further urge, with much earnestness, that the cause of action founded upon the statute of Louisiana conferring the right to recover damages for an injury resulting in death was not enforceable in Texas.

The action, being in its nature transitory, might be maintained if the act complained of constituted a tort at common law, but, as a statutory delict, it is contended that it must be justiciable, not only where the act was done, but where redress is sought. If a tort at common law where suit was brought, it would be presumed that the common law prevailed where the occurrence complained of transpired, but, if the cause of action was created by statute, then the law of the forum and of the wrong must substantially concur in order to render legal redess demandable.

In The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66, 123, Mr. Chief Justice MARSHALL stated the international rule, with customary force, that 'the courts of no country execute the penal laws of another;' but we have held that that rule cannot be invoked as applicable to a statute of this kind, which merely authorizes 'a civil action to recover damages for a civil injury.' Dennick v. Railroad Co., 103 U.S. 11. This was a case instituted in New York to recover damages for injuries received and resulting in death in New Jersey, and it was decided that a right arising under or a liability imposed by either the common law or the statute of a state may, where the action is transitory, be asserted and enforced in any court having jurisdiction of such matters and of the parties.

And, notwithstanding some contrariety of decision upon the point, the rule thus stated is generally recognized and applied where the statute of the state in which the cause of action arose is not in substance inconsistent with the statutes or public policy of the state in which the right of action is sought to be enforced.

The statutes of these two states on this subject are not essentially dissimilar, and it cannot be successfully asserted that the maintenance of jurisdiction is opposed to a settled public policy of the state of Texas.

In Willis v. Railroad Co., 61 Tex. 432, it was held by the supreme court of Texas that suit could not be brought in that state for injuries resulting in death inflicted in the Indian Territory, where no law existed creating such a right of action. The opinion goes somewhat further than this in expression, but in that regard has not been subsequently adopted.

In Railway Co. v. Richards, 68 Tex. 375, 4 S. W. Rep. 627, it was said that, while there was some conflict of decision, it seemed to be generally held that a right given by the statutes of one state would be recognized and enforced in the courts of another state, whose laws gave a like right under the same facts. In Railroad Co. v. McCormick, 71 Tex. 660, 9 S. W. Rep. 540, the supreme court declined to sustain a suit in Texas by a widow for damages for the negligent killing of her husband in Arkansas, for the reason that the statutes of Arkansas were so different from those of Texas in that regard that jurisdiction ought not to be taken, but the court indicated that it would be a duty to do so in transitory actions where the laws of both jurisdictions were similar. The question, however, is one of general law, and we regard it as settled in Dennick v. Railroad Co., supra.

But it is insisted that the general rule ought not to be followed in this case because the statute of Texas giving a right of action for the infliction, through negligence, of injuries resulting in death, does not apply to persons engaged as receivers in the operation of railroads, and reference is made to Turner v. Cross, decided February 5, 1892. and reported in advance of the official series in 18 S. W. Rep. 578, (followed by Railway Co. v. Collins, [19 S. W. Rep. 365,] decided March 22, 1892, and furnished to us in manuscript,) in which the supreme court of Texas so held upon the ground that a receiver is not a 'proprietor, owner, charterer, or hirer' of the railroad he has in charge, and so not within the terms of the Texas statute. Without questioning the correctness of this view, still it would be going much too far to attribute to these decisions the effect of a determination that an action could not be maintained against receivers in the enforcement of a cause of action arising in Louisiana, whose statute is not open to such a construction.

We are brought, then, to consider whether reversible error intervened in the conduct of the trial. The contention on this branch of the case is chiefly that the court should have directed a verdict for the defendants because there was no evidence of negligence on their part, while there was evidence of contributory negligence on the part of Cox.

The case should not have been withdrawn from the jury unless the conclusion followed, as matter of law, that no recovery could be had upon any view which could be properly taken of the facts the evidence tended to establish. Dunlap v. Railroad Co., 130 U.S. 649, 652, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 647; Kane v. Railroad Co., 128 U.S. 91, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 16; Jones v. Railroad Co., 128 U.S. 443, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 118.

We think the evidence given in the record tended to establish that the coupling apparatus and the track were in an unsafe and dangerous condition, that the injury happened in consequence; and that these defects were such as must have been known to the defendants under proper inspection, and unless they were negligently ignorant. No conflict appears as to the condition of the roadbed in the railroad yard, but there was testimony on defendants' behalf indicating that the coupling apparatus was not substantially defective.

The bill of exceptions does not purport to contain all the evidence, and it would be improper to hold that the court should have directed a verdict for defendants for want of that which may have existed.

No exception was taken to the admission or exclusion of evidence, and none to any part of the charge of the court, which is given in full. Among other things, the court instructed the jury:

'If you shall find either that the roadbed was not unsafe or dangerous, although not the best character, or that the coupling pin used was not unsafe or dangerous, although not as well adapted for use as a round pin, then you will find for defendant.

'And, again, if you shall find from the evidence that both the roadbed and coupling pin were unsafe and dangerous, yet if you shall find from the evidence that neither of these causes resulted in the death of Chas. Cox, nor were the proximate causes producing the injuries whereof he died, then you will find for the defendant.

'It is incumbent on the plaintiff, before she can recover, not only to prove that the defects complained of existed, but also that they or one of them were the cause of death.

'If the death was the result of accident, misadventure, or the want of care or prudence on the part of deceased, or other cause not complained of, plaintiff cannot recover.

'You must ascertain the true nature of the case, and the actual cause of death, from the evidence as adduced before you, and render your verdict in accordance therewith.'

Twelve specific instructions were asked on behalf of defendants, and refused, and exceptions taken, but, except as stated, they are not insisted upon in argument, and we think they were substantially covered by the charge as given.

Some emphasis is put upon the fact that the car which inflicted the injury was from another road, but that circumstance does not call for special mention, in the view we take of the case, and does not seem to have been relied on in the court below. The circuit court correctly applied well-settled principles in the disposition of the questions of law arising upon the trial, and it would subserve no useful purpose to retraverse, in exposition of those principles, ground so often covered. Railroad Co. v. McDade, 135 U.S. 554, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1044; Railroad Co. v. Herbert, 116 U.S. 642, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 590; Coasting Co. v. Tolson, 139 U.S. 551, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 653; Kane v. Railway, 128 U.S. 91, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 16; Hough v. Railway Co., 100 U.S. 213; Railroad v. Horst, 93 U.S. 291.

Judgment affirmed.

Notes