United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Toledo, St. Louis & Western R. Co. v. Slavin, 236 U.S. 454 (1915)

Toledo, St. Louis & Western Railroad Company v. Slavin

No. 147

Submitted January 20, 1915

Decided February 23, 1915

236 U.S. 454

Syllabus

Where the ruling of the trial court, in an action for personal injuries against a railroad company, that the state statute abolishing assumption of risk and contributory negligence applied was reversed by the intermediate appellate court on the ground that the Federal Employers' Liability Act, which does not abolish such defenses, applied, and the highest court of the state reversed this judgment

Page 236 U. S. 455

without opinion, a controlling federal question was necessarily involved, and this Court has jurisdiction to renew under § 237, Judicial Code.

When the evidence shows that, although the case was brought under the state statute, plaintiff was injured while engaged in interstate commerce, the objection that he cannot recover under the Federal Employers' Liability Act is not a technical rule of pleading, but a matter of substance, and where there are substantive differences between the state and federal statutes in regard to defenses of assumption of risk and contributory negligence, proceeding under the former is reversible error.

88 Oh.St. 536 reversed.

The facts, which involve the validity of a judgment for personal injuries obtained in the state court under the state statute and the application and effect of the Federal Employers' Liability Act, are stated in the opinion.