South Buffalo Railway Company v. Ahern/Dissent Douglas

by William O. Douglas

United States Supreme Court

344 U.S. 367

South Buffalo Railway Company  v.  Ahern

 Argued: Dec. 17, 1952. --- Decided: Jan 19, 1953

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, dissenting.

This judgment cannot be sustained on the ground that the parties were merely using the good offices of the New York Workmen's Compensation Board to compromise a claim under the Federal Employers' Liability Act. No such claim was ever asserted. The claim made charged no negligence. And no such issue was ever tendered. , yet without negligence, there is no liability under the federal Act. Moreover, this does not appear to be a situation where a claim, contested under the federal Act, is compromised, the standards of a state Act being used as the basis for the settlement. Cf. Bay State Dredging & Contracting Co. v. Porter, 1 Cir., 153 F.2d 827; Heagney v. Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, 2 Cir., 190 F.2d 976. This claim seems to be founded on 'accident' rather than on 'negligence.' And the claimant apparently sought relief under the New York Act because he had none under the federal Act.

But the judgment cannot be affirmed as a settlement of litigation under the New York Act. The Court held in New York Central R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 147, 37 S.Ct. 546, 61 L.Ed. 1045, that the remedy for personal injuries suffered by employees of interstate railroad carriers is regulated both inclusively and exclusively by the federal Act, that no room is left for state regulation, that even though the injury on which the claim is based is not attributable to negligence and therefore may not be compensated for under the federal Act, nevertheless a state may not afford a remedy. The Court held that the federal Act supplanted the state acts and established one exclusive standard of liability for interstate railroad carriers. And see Erie R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 170, 172, 37 S.Ct. 556, 557, 61 L.Ed. 1057.

Therefore, by reason of the Supremacy Clause, a state has no power to adopt a different standard of liability for these personal injuries. It may neither force nor permit the carriers or the employees to settle these personal injury claims on a different basis than the federal Act supplies. Since the New York legislature is constitutionally barred from vesting its Workmen's Compensation Board and its courts with jurisdiction over the claim, I fail to see how they can acquire jurisdiction through consent of the parties. No waiver, consent, or estoppel should be allowed to enlarge the state domain at the expense of the overriding federal policy. Cf. United States v. Corrick, 298 U.S. 435, 440, 56 S.Ct. 829, 831, 80 L.Ed. 1263.

Mr. Justice Brandeis dissented in New York Central R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 147, 154, 37 S.Ct. 546, 549, 61 L.Ed. 1045, in an opinion in which Mr. Justice Clarke concurred. Under his view the federal Act does not preclude a state from adding to a carrier's liability for negligence, a liability based on accident. His view is the one I would follow; and I would join four in overruling the Winfield cases. But they are still the law; and their holdings are in my view quite inconsistent with what the Court now does.

Notes