delivered the opinion of the court.
The question to be determined is whether the Court of Appeals of Kentucky erred in affirming the action of the Boyd circuit court in denying the application to remove. And that depends on whether' a separable controversy appeared on thе face of plaintiffs petition or declaration. If the liability of defendants, as set forth in that pleading, was joint, and the cause of action entire, then the controversy was not separable as matter of law, and plaintiffs purpose in joining Chalkey аnd Sidles was immaterial. The petition for removal did not charge fraud in that regard or set up any facts and circumstances indicative thereof, and plaintiffs motive in the performance of a lawful act was not open to inquiry.
By section 211 of the constitution of Kentucky it is provided that “ whenever the death of a person shall result from an injury inflicted by negligence or wrongful act, then, in every such case, damages may be recovered for such death, from the corporations and persons so causing the same.”
Section 6 of the Kentucky statutes provides: “ Whenever the death of a person shall result from an injury inflicted by negligence or wrongful act, then in every such case, damages may be recovered for such death from the person or persons, cоmpany or companies, corporation or corporations, their agents or servants, causing the same, and when the act is wilful or the negligence is gross, punitive damages may be recovered, and the action to recover such damagеs shall be prosecuted by the personal representative of the deceased.”
The cause of action thus created is independent of any right of action the deceased may have had, or would have had if he had survived the injury ; and in this casе the Court of Appeals held that the company and its engineer and fireman were jointly liable for Dixon’s death, if caused by the negligence of those employes; and that the cause of action as alleged against all the defendants was an entire cause of action. The court also held that such cause of action was sufficiently proven, but we are dealing with the pleadings alone.
Counsel for plaintiff in error contends, however, that plain *136 tiff’s complaint does not state a joint cause of action against the corporate and individual defendants, but states a separate cause of action against the railway company and a separate cause of action against the other defendants.
It is conceded thаt if an action be brought on a joint cause of action it makes no difference that separate causes of action may have existed on which separate actions might have been brought, and furthermore that it makes no difference that in аn action on a joint ca,use of action a separate recovery may be had against either of the defendants; while it is insisted that if two or more separable controversies appear from the averments it is not material whether they have been properly or improperly joined.
If the liability was not joint then separable' controversies ex isted, and the argument.is that the averment that the negligence complained of “ was the joint negligence of all the defendants ” merely, stated the conclusion of law that the company and its employes were jointly liable in the action for the injury inflicted, through the .negligence of the latter in the course of and within the scope of their employment, and this conclusion is denied on the ground that the liability of the company as alleged rested on a wholly different basis from that of the liability of its servants.
In Warax v. Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. Railway Company, 72 Fed. Rep. 637, Taft, J., held that there were separable controversies in such cases, because the liability of the master for the negligence of his servants in his absence, and without his concurrence or express direction, arises solely from the policy of the law which requires that he shall be held responsible for the acts of those he employs, done in and about his business, while the liability of the servant arises whоlly from his personal act in doing the wrong.
This view of the ground of the master’s liability is expressed by Mr. Pollock in his work on Torts, (Amer. ed. 89, 90,) thus : “ I am answerable for the wrongs of my servant or agent, not because he is authorized by me or personally represents me, but because he is about my affairs, and lam bound to see that my affairs are conducted with due regard to the safety of others.”
*137 So it was said, by Lord Brougham in Duncan v. Findlater, 6 Clark & Fin. 894, 910: “ The reason that I am liable is this, that by employing him I set the whole thing in motion; and what he does, being done for my benefit and under my direction, I am responsible for the consequences of doing it.”
By Lord Cranworth in Barton's Dill Coal Company v. Reid, 3 McQueen, 266, 283: “ He is considered as bound to guarantee third persons against all hurt arising from the carelessness of himself or of those acting under his orders in the course of his business.”
And by Chief Justice Shaw in
Farwell
v.
Boston & Worcester Railroad Company,
Whatever its sources or the principles on which it rests, the rule itself is firmly established ; and many courts have held the identification of master and servant to be so complete that the liability of both may be enforced in the same action, although other courts have reached the opposite conclusion.
1
As remarked by Mr. Justice Gray, then Chief Justice of Mаssachusetts, in
Mulchey
v.
Methodist Religious Society,
In respect of the removal of actions of tort on the ground of separable controversy, certain matters must be regarded as not open to dispute. In
Powers
v.
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company,
“ It is well settled that an action of tort, which might have *138 been brought against many persons or against any one or more of them, and which is brought in a stаte court against all jointly, contains no separate controversy which will authorize its removal by some of the defendants into the Circuit Court of the United States, even if they file separate answers and set up different defenses from the other defendants, аnd allege that they are not jointly liable with them, and that their own controversy with the plaintiff is a separate one; for, as this court has often said, ‘ A defendant has no right to say that an action shall be several which the plaintiff seeks to make joint. A separаte defense may defeat a joint recovery, but it cannot deprive a plaintiff of his right to prosecute his suit to final decision in his own way. The cause of action is the subject-matter of the controversy, and that is, for all the purposes of the suit, whatevеr the plaintiff declares it to be in his pleadings.’ Pirie v. Tvedt,115 U. S. 41 , 43; Sloane v. Anderson,117 U. S. 275 ; Little v. Giles,118 U. S. 596 , 600, 601; Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Wangelin,132 U. S. 599 ; Torrence v. Shedd,114 U. S. 527 , 530; Connell v. Smiley,156 U. S. 335 , 340.”
In Railroad Company v. Wangelin it was said.to be equally well settled “ that in any case the question whether there is a separable controversy which will warrant a removal is to be determined by. the condition of the record in the state court at the time of the filing of the petition for removal, independently of the allegations, in that petition or in the affidavit of the petitioner — unless the petitioner both alleges and proves that the defendants were wrongfully made joint defendants for the purpоse of preventing a removal into the Federal court.” In that case the declaration charged two corporations with having jointly trespassed on the plaintiff’s land, and it was insisted that one of the corporations was not in existence at the timе of the alleged trespass, but that was held to be a question on the merits.
And in
Provident Savings Life Assurance Society
v.
Ford,
The contention of counsel is that this complaint charged neither direсt nor concurrent nor concerted action on the part *139 of all the defendants, but counted merely on the negligence of the employés.
If the complaint should be so construed, the question would still remain whether the cause of action was not еntire as the case stood, and the objection of the difference in the character of the liability matter of defense, which might force an election, or defeat the action as to one of the parties.
The cause of action mаnifestly comprised every fact which plaintiff was obliged to prove in order to obtain judgment, or, conversely, every fact which defendants would have the right to traverse. And on the principle of the identification, of the master with the servant, it would seem that thеre was no fact which the company could traverse which its codefendants, being its employés, could not. At all events a judgment against all could not afterwards be attacked for the first time on this ground.
But does the complaint bear the construction the company puts upon it?
The pleader did not set forth, and, according to the decision of the Court of Appeals, this was not material, the specific acts of negligence complained of. It was stated that the “ negligence of the corporate defendant was done by and through its said servants and other of its servants then and there in its employment, and said negligence was the joint negligence of all the defendants.” Assuming this averment to be inconsistent with a charge of direct action by the company, it may nеvertheless be held to amount to a charge of concurrent action when coupled with the previous averment that Dixon was killed while crossing the track at a turnpike crossing by the negligence of the company and the other defendants in chargе of the train. The negligence may have consisted in that the train was run at too great speed, and in that proper signals of its approach were not given ; and if the speed was permitted by the company’s rules, or not forbidden, though dangerous, the negligеnce in that particular, and in the omission of signals would be concurrent. Other grounds of concurring negligence may be imagined. And where concurrent negligence is charged the controversy is not separable.
*140
In
Whitcomb v. Smithson,
Chicago, Rock Island &c. Company
v.
Martin,
In
Powers
v.
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company, supra,
where the company and its employés had been jointly sued as in the case at bar, the case had been remanded on removal for want of separable controversy. Plaintiff subsequently discontinued the action as to all the defendants except the company, and the company again made application to remove. This was denied by the state court but granted by the Circuit Court, and the judgment of the latter was affirmed by this court, the questiоn of separable controversy being necessarily not passed on here.
Plymouth Gold Mining Company
v.
Amador & Sacramento Canal Company,
Our conclusion is that it cannot properly be held that it appeared on the face of this pleading, as matter of law,' that the сause of action was not entire, or that a separable controversy was presented.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
See oases collected in 15 Encyc. Pleading and Practice, 560.