Under the Safety Appliance Acts of March 2, 1893, c.196, 27
Stat. 531, April 1, 1896, c. 87, 29 Stat. 8, and March 2, 1903, c.
976, 32 Stat. 943, there is imposed an absolute duty on the
carrier, and the penalty cannot be escaped by exercise of
reasonable care.
This Court, in
St. Louis, I. M. & S. Railway Co. v.
Taylor, 210 U. S. 281,
considered and determined the scope and effect of the Safety
Appliance Acts and the degree of care required by the carrier, and
the question is not open to further discussion, as this Court
should not disturb a construction which has been widely accepted
and acted upon by the courts.
For this Court to give a construction to an act of Congress
contrary to one previously given would cause uncertainty, if not
mischief, in the administration of law in federal courts, and,
having placed an interpretation on the Safety Appliance Acts, this
Court will adhere thereto until Congress, by amendment, changes the
rule announced in
St. Louis, I. M. & S. Railway Co. v.
Taylor, supra.
An action for penalties under the Safety Appliance Acts is a
civil, and not a criminal one, and the enforcement of such
penalties is not governed by considerations controlling prosecution
of criminal offenses.
Congress has unquestioned power to declare an offense and to
exclude the elements of knowledge and due diligence from the
inquiry as to its commission.
170 F. 556 affirmed.
The facts, which involve the construction of the Safety
Appliance Acts and the duties and liabilities of carriers to equip
their cars with safety appliances, are stated in the opinion.
Page 220 U. S. 567
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Two separate actions were brought by the government in the
District Court of the United States for the District of Nebraska,
against the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, an
Iowa corporation engaged as a common carrier in interstate
commerce. The object of each action was to recover certain
penalties which, the United States alleged, had been incurred by
the company for violations, in several specified instances, of the
Safety Appliance Acts of Congress. March 2, 1893, c. 196, 27 Stat.
532; April 1, 1896, 29 Stat. 85, c. 87; March 2, 1903, 32 Stat.
943, c. 976. By consent of the parties and by order of court, the
two actions were consolidated and tried together. At the trial, the
court directed a verdict of guilty as to each cause of action, and
a judgment for $300 was rendered for the government in one case and
for $100 in the other.
By the original Act of March 2, 1893 (27 Stat. 531, c. 196), it
was provided that from and after the first day of January, 1898, it
should be unlawful for any common carrier engaged in moving
interstate
Page 220 U. S. 568
traffic by railroad to use on its line any locomotive engine not
equipped with a power driving-wheel brake and appliances for
operating the train brake system, or, after that date, to run any
train in such traffic that had not a sufficient nummber of cars in
it so equipped with power or train brakes that the engineer on the
locomotive drawing such train can control its speed without
requiring brakemen to use the common hand brake for that
purpose.
The second section provided
"that, on and after the first day of January, eighteen hundred
and ninety-eight, it shall be unlawful for any such common carrier
to haul or permit to be hauled or used on its line any car used in
moving interstate traffic not equipped with couplers coupling
automatically by impact, and which can be uncoupled without the
necessity of men going between the ends of the cars."
The sixth section, as amended April first, 1896, provided that
any such common carrier using a locomotive engine, running a train,
or hauling or permitting to be hauled or used on its line any car
in violation of any of the provisions of this act
"shall be liable to a penalty of one hundred dollars for each
and every such violation, to be recovered in a suit or suits to be
brought by the United States district attorney in the district
court of the United States having jurisdiction in the locality
where such violation shall have been committed . . .
Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall apply
to trains composed of four-wheel cars, or to trains composed of
eight-wheel standard logging cars, where the height of such car
from top of rail to center of coupling does not exceed twenty-five
inches, or to locomotives used in hauling such trains when such
cars or locomotives are exclusively used for the transportation of
logs."
The eighth section is in these words:
"That any employee of any such common carrier who may be injured
by any locomotive, car, or train in use contrary to the provision
of this act shall not be deemed thereby to have assumed the
Page 220 U. S. 569
risk thereby occasioned, although continuing in the employment
of such carrier after the unlawful use of such locomotive, car, or
train had been brought to his knowledge."
After referring to various cases holding that the omission of
Congress to make knowledge and diligence on the part of the carrier
ingredients of the act condemned, the trial court said:
"Its omission was intentional, in order that this statute might
induce such a high degree of care and diligence on the part of the
railway company as to necessitate a change in the manner of
inspecting appliances, and to protect the lives and the safety of
its employees, provided the accident occurs from a defective
appliance such as is designated in this act. And for these reasons
the jury will be peremptorily instructed to return a verdict for
the government on each count of the petition."
In the circuit court of appeals, that judgment was affirmed. In
the course of its opinion the latter court said:
"The cause is simplified by the concession of counsel for the
railway company that there was evidence tending to prove the
defective condition of each of the four cars as charged, and that
they were all being used at the time stated in the several counts
in hauling interstate commerce, or as a part of a train containing
other cars which were doing so. The sole contention is that,
notwithstanding this concession, inasmuch as it appears by the
proof that defendant did not know its cars were out of repair, and
had no actual intention at the time to violate the law, but, on the
contrary, had exercised reasonable care to keep them in repair by
the usual inspections, it is not liable in this action. Learned
counsel concede, what is undoubtedly true, that sustaining their
contention involves a reversal of the doctrine unanimously declared
by this Court in
United States v. Atchison, T. & S.F. R.
Co., 163 F. 517, and
United States v. Denver & Rio
Grande R. Co., 163 F.
Page 220 U. S. 570
519, and a disregard of what they call the dictum of the Supreme
Court in
St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Taylor,
210 U. S.
281, and they accordingly invite us to enter upon a
reconsideration of the questions so decided. It was held by us, and
in our opinion it was necessarily held by the Supreme Court in the
Taylor case, that the duty of railroads under the statute
in question is an absolute duty, and not one which is discharged by
the exercise of reasonable care or diligence. Since those cases
were decided, this Court, in the case of
Chi., Mil. & St.P.
Ry. Co. v. United States, 165 F. 423, has again approved of
their doctrine, and the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit in the case of
Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. United
States, decided March 1, 1909, 168 F. 175, in considering this
question, made a review of pertinent authorities, and particularly
of the cases of this court as well as of the
Taylor case,
and in an exhaustive opinion reached the same conclusion that we
did. . . . The act made it unlawful for railroads to use cars not
equipped as therein provided, and thereby imposed a duty upon
railroad companies to equip cars accordingly. This was, by clear
and unequivocal language of the lawmaker, made an absolute duty,
not dependable upon the exercise of diligence or the existence of
any wrong intent on the part of the railroad companies. Whether a
defendant carrier knew its cars were out of order or not is
immaterial. Its duty was to know they were in order and kept in
order at all times. Cases
supra. A breach of this duty,
like the breach of most civil duties, naturally entailed a
liability, and Congress fixed that liability not as a punishment
for a criminal offense, but as a civil consequence, so far as the
government was concerned, of a failure to perform the duty which,
in the opinion of Congress, the public weal demanded should be
performed by railroad companies."
170 F. 556.
Does the act of Congress in question impose on an interstate
Page 220 U. S. 571
carrier an absolute duty to see to it that no car is hauled or
permitted to be hauled or used on its line unless it be equipped
with couplers coupling automatically by impact, and which can be
uncoupled without the necessity of men going between the ends of
the cars? Can the carrier engaged in moving interstate traffic
escape the penalty prescribed for a violation of the act, in the
particulars just mentioned, by showing that it had exercised
reasonable care in equipping its cars with the required coupler,
and had used due diligence to ascertain, from time to time, whether
such cars were properly equipped?
The court below held that an explicit answer to the above
questions was to be found in
St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co.
v. Taylor, supra. The government insists that such was the
effect of the decision of that case. The defendant contends that
the questions here presented were not necessary to be decided in
the
Taylor case, and that an examination of them now is
not precluded by anything involved in that case.
Under the circumstances and because of the importance of the
questions raised, it seems appropriate, if not necessary, to state
the origin of the
Taylor case and the grounds upon which
this Court proceeded.
Neal, as administrator of the estate of Taylor, brought an
action in an Arkansas court against the St. Louis, Iron Mountain
& Southern Railway Company to recover damages for the death of
Taylor, one of its employees, whose death, it was alleged, had been
caused by the company's failure to provide certain safety
appliances required by the Act of Congress. Pursuant to the
direction of the state court, a verdict was returned for the
railway company. The case was taken to the Supreme Court of
Arkansas, and that court decided that the Act of Congress departed
from or supplanted that general rule obtaining between master and
servant, which protected the master, when charged with the failure
to have safe machinery for the servant,
Page 220 U. S. 572
if it appeared that the master used reasonable care and
diligence in providing suitable and safe appliances. "But," that
court said,
"it is different where the injury is caused by a violation of a
statutory duty on the part of the master. The statute upon which
this case is based does not say that the company shall use ordinary
care to provide its cars with drawbars of a certain height, but it
imposes as a positive duty upon railway companies that they shall
do so. . . . The act of Congress requiring railroad companies to
equip their cars with drawbars of standard and uniform heights
specifically provides that an employee injured by the failure of a
company to comply with the act shall not be deemed to have assumed
the risk by reason of his knowledge that the company had not
complied with the statute, and there is no question of assumed risk
presented."
The supreme court of the state was therefore of opinion that the
trial court had not correctly interpreted the Act of Congress in
respect of the nature of the duty imposed by the statute on the
railroad company, and directed the case to be sent back for a new
trial.
Neal v. St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co., 71 Ark.
445, 450. The second trial was conducted on the basis of the
principles announced by the Supreme Court of Arkansas in that case.
At the second trial, the railway company asked the court to
instruct, but the court refused to instruct, the jury as
follows:
"The court tells you that, if you find from the evidence in this
case the defendant equipped all its cars with uniform and standard
height drawbars when such cars are first built and turned out of
the shops, then the defendant is only bound
to use ordinary
care to maintain such drawbars at the uniform and standard
height spoken of in the testimony."
This was designated as instruction No. 23, asked by the railway
company. It appears at page 126 of the original record, on file in
this Court, of the
Taylor case. At the last trial, there
was a verdict in the state court against the railway company. The
company appealed to the Supreme
Page 220 U. S. 573
Court of Arkansas, where the judgment was affirmed.
St.
Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Neal, 83 Ark. 591, 598.
The railway company prosecuted a writ of error to this Court,
and the case is reported as
St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co.
v. Taylor, 210 U. S. 281. It
was assigned by the company for error, and its counsel insisted
that the trial court erred in refusing the above instruction, No.
23, and that the supreme court of the state erred in not so ruling.
(Original record, p. 154.) The reason assigned in support of that
view was that
"a reasonable construction of the Safety Appliance Act is that,
if the railroad company equipped all its cars with uniform and
standard height drawbars when such cars were first built and turned
out of the shops, then that
thereafter the defendant is
only bound to use
ordinary care to maintain such drawbars
at the uniform and standard height mentioned in the testimony."
Counsel for the other side contended in the case in 210 U.S.
that,
"under the Safety Appliance Act, it is immaterial whether the
defendant had notice of the defect, or had used ordinary care to
prevent this and similar defects from arising,"
and that "the railroad is liable under the act, unconditionally,
for any violation of its provisions," citing
Southern R. Co. v.
Carson, 194 U. S. 136;
United States v. Atlantic Coast Line Railway Co., 153 F.
918;
United States v. Southern Ry. Co., 135 F. 122;
United States v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 150 F. 229. It is
thus seen that whether the Act of Congress imposed an absolute duty
upon the carrier in the matter of the required safety appliances,
or whether knowledge or diligence on its part was an ingredient in
the act condemned, was a question distinctly presented here by the
assignments of error and by counsel on both sides. This Court
regarded the question as properly presented on the record, and that
its duty was to meet and decide it. Speaking by Mr. Justice Moody,
it said:
"It is not, and cannot be, disputed that the questions raised by
the errors assigned
Page 220 U. S. 574
were seasonably and properly made in the court below, so as to
give this Court jurisdiction to consider them, so no time need be
spent on that."
What, then, was held by this Court in the
Taylor case?
Among other things, the Court said:
"On this state of the evidence, the defendant was refused
instructions, in substance, that, if the defendant furnished cars
which were constructed with drawbars of a standard height, and
furnished shims to competent inspectors and train men, and used
reasonable care to keep the drawbars at a reasonable height, it had
complied with its statutory duty, and, if the lowering of the
drawbar resulted from the failure to use the shims, that was the
negligence of a fellow servant, for which the defendant was not
responsible. In deciding the questions thus raised, upon which the
courts have differed (
St. Louis & S.F. Ry. Co. v.
Delk, 158 F. 931), we need not enter into the wilderness of
cases upon the common law duty of the employer to use reasonable
care to furnish his employee reasonably safe tools, machinery, and
appliances, or consider when and how far that duty may be performed
by delegating it to suitable persons for whose default the employer
is not responsible. In the case before us, the liability of the
defendant does not grow out of the common law duty of master to
servant. The Congress,
not satisfied with the common law duty
and its resulting liability, has prescribed and defined the
duty by statute. We have nothing to do but to ascertain
and declare the meaning of a few simple words in which the duty is
described. It is enacted that 'no cars, either loaded or unloaded,
shall be used in interstate traffic which do not comply with the
standard.' There is no escape from the meaning of these words.
Explanation cannot clarify them, and ought not to be employed to
confuse them or lessen their significance. The obvious purpose of
the legislature was
to supplant the qualified duty of the
common law with an absolute duty deemed by it more just. If
the railroad does, in point of fact,
Page 220 U. S. 575
use cars which do not comply with the standard, it violates the
plain prohibitions of the law, and there arises from that violation
the liability to make compensation to one who is injured by it. It
is urged that this is a harsh construction. To this we reply that,
if it be the true construction, its harshness is no concern of the
courts.
They have no responsibility for the justice or wisdom
of legislation, and no duty except to enforce the law as it is
written, unless it is clearly beyond the constitutional power of
the lawmaking body. . . . It is quite conceivable that
Congress, contemplating the inevitable hardship of such injuries
and hoping to diminish the economic loss to the community resulting
from them, should deem it wise to impose their burdens upon those
who could measurably control their causes, instead of upon those
who are in the main helpless in that regard. Such a policy would be
intelligible, and, to say the least, not so unreasonable as to
require us to doubt that it was intended, and to seek some
unnatural interpretation of common words. We see no error in this
part of the case."
These views were not new, but were in accord with previous
judgments in several cases in the federal courts. In
United
States v. Phil. & R. Ry. Co., 160 F. 696, 698;
United
States v. L. & N. R. Co., 162 F. 185, 186;
United
States v. Chicago Great Western Ry. Co., 162 F. 775, 778.
It cannot then be doubted that this Court, in the
Taylor case, considered the scope and effect of the Safety
Appliance Act of Congress and directly involved in the questions
raised in that case, and it expressly decided that the provision in
the second section relating to automatic couplers imposed an
absolute duty on each corporation in every case to provide the
required couplers on cars used in interstate traffic. It also
decided that nonperformance of that duty could not be evaded or
excused by proof that the corporation had used ordinary care in the
selection of proper couplers or reasonable diligence in using them
and
Page 220 U. S. 576
ascertaining their condition from time to time. That the
Taylor case, as decided by this Court, has been so
interpreted and acted upon by the federal courts generally is
entirely clear, as appears from the cases cited in the margin.
*
In
United States v. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry. Co.,
163 F. 517, MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER, then circuit judge, speaking
for the circuit court of appeals, referred to the
Taylor
case in this Court, saying:
"It is now authoritatively settled that the duty of the railway
company in situations where the congressional law is applicable is
not that of exercising reasonable care in maintaining the
prescribed safety appliance in operative condition, but is
absolute. In that case, the common law rules in respect of the
exercise of reasonable care by the master, and of the nonliability
of the master for the negligence of a fellow servant, were invoked
by the railway company, and were held by the court to be superseded
by the statute; . . . While the defective appliance in that case
was a drawbar, and not a coupler, and the action was one to recover
damages for the death of an employee, and not a penalty, we
perceive nothing in these differences which distinguish that case
from this. A respects the nature of the duty placed
Page 220 U. S. 577
upon the railway company, § 5, relating to drawbars, is the same
as § 2, relating to couplers, and § 6, relating to the penalty, is
expressed in terms which embrace every violation of any provision
of the preceding sections. Indeed, a survey of the entire statute
leaves no room to doubt that all violations thereof are put in the
same category, and that whatever properly would be deemed a
violation in an action to recover for personal injuries is to be
deemed equally a violation in an action to recover a penalty."
In view of these facts, we are unwilling to regard the question
as to the meaning and scope of the Safety Appliance Act, so far as
it relates to automatic couplers on trains moving interstate
traffic, as open to further discussion here. If the court was wrong
in the
Taylor case, the way is open for such an amendment
of the statute as Congress may, in its discretion, deem proper.
This Court ought not now disturb what has been so widely accepted
and acted upon by the courts as having been decided in that case. A
contrary course would cause infinite uncertainty, if not mischief,
in the administration of the law in the federal courts. To avoid
misapprehension, it is appropriate to say that we are not to be
understood as questioning the soundness of the interpretation
heretofore placed by this Court upon the Safety Appliance Act. We
only mean to say that, until Congress, by an amendment of the
statute, changes the rule announced in the
Taylor case,
this Court will adhere to and apply that rule.
The
Taylor case was a strictly civil proceeding, being
an action by an individual to recover damages for a personal injury
alleged to have been caused by the negligence of a corporation,
whereas the present action is to recover a penalty. This
difference, it is suggested, will justify a reexamination, upon
principle, of the rule announced in the
Taylor case. In
effect, the contention is that the present action for a penalty is
a criminal prosecution, and
Page 220 U. S. 578
that the defendant cannot be held guilty of a crime when it had
no thought or purpose to commit a crime, and endeavored with due
diligence to obey the Act of Congress. This contention is unsound,
because the present action is a civil one. It is settled law
that
"a certain sum, or a sum which can readily be reduced to a
certainty, prescribed in a statute as a penalty for the violation
of law, may be recovered by civil action, even if it may also be
recovered in a proceeding which is technically criminal."
It was so decided, upon full consideration, in
Hepner v.
United States, 213 U. S. 103,
213 U. S. 108.
In that case, it was also held that it was competent for the trial
court, even though the action was for a penalty, to direct a
verdict for the government, the court saying that it was
"fundamental in the conduct of civil actions, that the court may
withdraw a case from the jury, and direct a verdict according to
the law, if the evidence is uncontradicted and raises only a
question of law."
So, in
Oceanic Navigation Co. v. Stranahan,
214 U. S. 320,
214 U. S.
337-338,
"The contention that, because the exaction which the statute
authorizes the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to impose is a
penalty, therefore its enforcement is necessarily governed by the
rules controlling in the prosecution of criminal offenses, is
clearly without merit, and is not open to discussion."
If the statute upon which the present action is based had
expressly or by implication declared that the penalty prescribed
may only be recovered by a criminal proceeding, that direction must
have been followed. The power of the legislature to declare an
offense, and to exclude the elements of knowledge and due diligence
from any inquiry as to its commission, cannot, we think, be
questioned.
Regina v. Woodrow, 15 Meeson & Welsby 404,
417;
People v. Snowberger, 113 Mich. 86;
Commonwealth
v. Emmons, 98 Mass. 6, 8;
People v. Roby, 52 Mich.
577;
Edgar v. State, 37 Ark. 219, 223;
State v.
Baltimore & Susquehanna Steam Co., 13 Md. 181,
Page 220 U. S. 579
187, 188. In
Halsted v. State, 41 N.J.L. 552, 591, the
suggestion was made that, in determining the mind of the
legislature, the dictates of natural justice should be the ground
of decision, and not simply regarded as a mere circumstance of
weight. But that court said:
"As there is an undoubted competency in the lawmaker to declare
an act criminal, irrespective of the knowledge or motive of the
doer of such act, there can be, of necessity, no judicial authority
having the power to require, in the enforcement of the law, such
knowledge or motive to be shown. In such instances, the entire
function of the court is to find out the intention of the
legislature, and to enforce the law in absolute conformity to such
intention."
So, in Greenleaf on Evidence:
"Where a statute commands that an act be done or omitted, which,
in the absence of such statute, might have been done or omitted
without culpability, ignorance of the fact or state of things
contemplated by the statute, it seems, will not excuse its
violation. Thus, for example, where the law enacts the forfeiture
of a ship having smuggled goods on board, and such goods are
secreted on board by some of the crew, the owner and officers being
alike innocently ignorant of the fact, yet the forfeiture is
incurred, notwithstanding their ignorance. Such is also the case in
regard to many other fiscal, police, and other laws and
regulations, for the mere violation of which, irrespective of the
motives or knowledge of the party, certain penalties are enacted;
for the law in these cases seems to bind the party to knew the
facts and to obey the law at his peril."
3 Greenl. 16th ed. §§ 21, 26, and notes.
We need say nothing more. The case is plainly covered by the act
of Congress. And as it is determined by the rule announced in the
Taylor case, it must be held that no error of law was
committed to the prejudice of the defendant, and the judgment must
be affirmed.
It is so ordered.
*
United States v. Phil. & R. Ry. Co., 162 F. 403;
United States v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 162 F. 410;
United States v. Denver & R.G. R. Co., 163 F. 519;
Chicago, M. & St.P. Ry. Co. v. United States, 165 F.
423;
Donegan v. Baltimore & N.Y. Ry. Co., 165 F. 869;
United States v. Erie R. Co., 166 F. 352;
United
States v. Wheeling & L. E. R. Co., 167 F. 198, 201;
Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. United States, 168 F. 175,
184;
Chicago Junction R. Co. v. King, 169 F. 372, 377;
United States v. Southern Pac. Co., 169 F. 407, 409;
Watson v. St. Louis I. M. & S. Ry. Co., 169 F. 942;
Wabash R. Co. v. United States, 172 F. 864;
Atchison,
T. & S.F. R. Co. v. United States, 172 F. 1021;
Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. v. United States, 177 F. 623;
United States v. Illinois C. R. Co., 177 F. 801;
Johnson v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 178 F. 646;
Sielgel
v. New York C. & H.R. Co., 178 F. 873.