United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Davis, 279 U.S. 34 (1929)

Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company v. Davis

No. 70

Argued November 23, 1928

Decided February 18, 1929

279 U.S. 34

Syllabus

1. Where a railway employee voluntarily abandons one of several places which are reasonably safe and well adapted to the work in which he was engaged, and assumes and places himself in a position of extreme danger which was neither furnished for the performance of his work nor well adapted thereto, and this negligence on his part is the sole and direct cause of his death, there is no ground upon which liability of the employer, under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, may be predicated. P. 279 U. S. 39.

2. In an action for wrongful death, brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, if the charge that the death was caused by the negligence of the employer in any respect in which it owed a duty to the decedent is without any substantial support, the jury should be instructed to find for the defendant. P. 279 U. S. 39.

150 S.C. 130 reversed.

Certiorari, 276 U.S. 614, to a judgment of the Supreme Court of South Carolina affirming a judgment

Page 279 U. S. 35

recovered by the administrator of a deceased railway employee in an action for wrongful death, brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act.