126 Minn. 172 | Minn. | 1914
Plaintiff was a laborer employed by defendant in its yards and shops at Paducah, Kentucky. He brought this action to recover for personal injuries received while he was wheeling a barrow full of coal to one of the car repair shops. The coal was intended for use in heating stoves in a shop where employees of defendant were engaged in repairing cars. Four tracks entered this shop or shed, upon which tracks bad-order cars were placed and repaired. Defendant was engaged in interstate as well as intrastate commerce, and many if not all of the cars repaired in the shop were cars that moved only in interstate commerce. The trial court held as a matter of law that plaintiff was at the time of the accident engaged in interstate commerce within the meaning of the Federal Employer’s liability Act (Act April 22, 1908, c. 149, 35 St. 65 [U. S. Comp, St. Supp. 1911, p. 1322]) and therefore that he was entitled to recover damages in accordance with the provisions of that act, if the accident was caused by negligence on the part of his fellow servants. There was a verdict for plaintiff, and defendant appealed from the judgment entered on the verdict, after its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial had been denied.
The assignments of error present but a single question: Was plain
The men in the shop were engaged in repairing ears that had been and were to be used in interstate commerce. Plaintiff, when he was injured, was wheeling coal to be used in heating the shop so that these men could do their work. The question is to be determined from the language of the Federal Act
That the men engaged in repairing the cars were employed in interstate commerce is well settled. That an employee, carrying materials
Counsel for defendant correctly say that the decision in the Pedersen case has apparently warranted the conclusion that the Federal Supreme Court would ultimately construe the Act of Congress as. applicable to practically all employees of interstate railroads, except possibly those engaged in the work of new construction of instrumentalities as distinguished from repairs upon old instrumentalities. Put they refer to the case of Illinois Central R. Co. v. Behrens, 233 U. S. 473, 34 Sup. Ct. 646, 58 L. ed. 1051, decided by the Supreme Court April 27, 1914, as indicating a less liberal construction of the act. We do not see that the Behrens case is in point. The employee-was at the time of the injury engaged in moving cars loaded wholly with intrastate freight from one part of the city to another, and it was held that this was not a service in interstate commerce. Under-the test laid down in the Pedersen case and approved in the Behrens case: — “Is the work in question a part of the interstate commerce
Our conclusion is that plaintiff was engaged in interstate commerce at the time he was injured.
Judgment affirmed.
35 St. 65 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1911, p. 1322]