113 A. 160 | Conn. | 1921
The reservation requires our advice upon the single question whether the deceased at the time he contracted the disease from which he died was engaged in interstate commerce. If he was so engaged, his dependent is not entitled to compensation under our Act (General Statutes, Chap. 284), but must seek her remedy under the Federal Act (U.S. Comp. Stat. §§ 8657-8665). The dependent cannot take her choice of the remedies under the Federal Employers' Act or our Compensation Act. St. Louis,S. F. T. Ry. Co. v. Seale,
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company maintained in its yard adjoining its tracks a heating plant in which steam was generated and transmitted through pipes to cars standing on its tracks, with which connection was made by means of steam plugs. The steam so generated was used in interstate and intrastate commerce.
The deceased employee did not make the connections with the steam plugs, but operated the boiler of the heating plant, and five or six times an hour brought the coal to the boiler from coal cars standing on the track near the boiler house. He was required to keep the pathway from the boiler room to the coal cars open and free from snow in order to get the coal from the cars. Because of his subjection to striking changes of temperature and unusual conditions of exposure through working in the cold and then in the heat of the boiler room, the deceased contracted lobar pneumonia, which caused "by the conditions under which he worked and the activities of his employment," from which he died.
The Supreme Court of the United States has made the test of whether an employee was at the time of his injury engaged in interstate commerce depend upon *121
answering in the affirmative the question: "Was the employee at the time of the injury engaged in interstate transportation or in work so closely related to it as to be practically a part of it?" Chicago, B. Q.R. Co. v. Harrington,
Similarly the repair of an engine which had then no definite destination, but a probability of subsequent use in interstate commerce, was deemed too distant from that commerce to be a part of it. Minneapolis St. L. R. Co. v. Winters,
Counsel for the petitioner in Erie R. Co. v. Collins,
But when the structure or instrumentality or article is being directly and immediately used in interstate commerce, it is held to be a part of it or so closely related to it as to be a part of it, and each one engaged in its service is at the time in such commerce. Thus the carrying of bolts from a tool car to a bridge of a railroad in process of repair and used in both kinds of commerce, was held to be work so closely connected with interstate commerce as to be a part of it, since the bridge was indispensable to the operation of the railroad, and every instrumentality needed in its operation must be kept fit for such use. Pedersen v.Delaware, L. W. R. Co.,
The case of Erie R. Co. v. Collins,
In Chicago, B. Q. R. Co. v. Harrington,
Gruszewsky, the deceased, was engaged in the operation of generating steam by means of a heating plant in a railroad yard from whence the steam was transmitted in pipes to cars standing on the track of the railroad, and by means of steam plugs connection was made with the cars and the steam supplied. The generation of the steam and its transmission to the *124 cars was one process, more so even than the pumping of the water to the tanks and the supply therefrom to the engines, as in the Collins case. There was no separable part of this entire process. All of its instrumentalities and facilities were for the one end, the supply of heat for use in both kinds of commerce.Roush v. Baltimore O. R. Co., 243 F. 712, was similar in its facts to the Collins case, and a like result was reached.
The Superior Court is advised that Gruszewsky, the deceased, was, at the time he contracted pneumonia as described in the finding, engaged in interstate commerce and subject to the provisions of the Act of Congress of April 22d 1908 (U.S. Comp. Stat. §§ 8657-8665), and that the plaintiff is not entitled to compensation under Chapter 284 of the General Statutes.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.