1. Where the plaintiff in an action in damages for personal
injuries dies pending an appeal from a judgment in his favor, the
judgment subsequently being reversed and remanded by this Court for
a new trial on the ground that the federal Employers' Liability
Act, and not state law, was applicable, an amendment of the
complaint by the administrator so as to include a claim for damages
on account of the death introduces a new cause of action, and
cannot be allowed if the two-year period of limitation has already
run against that cause of action. P.
280 U. S.
494.
2. Under the federal Employers' Liability Act, the cause of
action which arises from death accrues, and the two-year period of
limitations begins to run at the time of the death. P.
280 U. S.
495.
3. A judgment based on a verdict awarding a single sum as
damages upon two causes of action, one for personal injuries and
the other for death resulting therefrom, must be reversed if one of
the causes of action was erroneously allowed to go to the jury, and
must be sent back for retrial on the other cause of action. P.
280 U. S.
495.
4. The duty of the employer to provide a safe place to work and
safe working appliances is not absolute; he is held only to the
exercise of reasonable care to that end. P.
280 U. S. 496.
200 Ind. 589 reversed.
Page 280 U. S. 492
Certiorari,
post, p. 537, to review a judgment of the
Supreme Court of Indiana which affirmed a judgment against the
Railroad Company in an action under the federal Employers'
Liability Act.
Page 280 U. S. 493
MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.
The deceased, Guerney O. Burtch, sustained personal injuries
while assisting to unload a heavy ensilage cutter from a freight
train operated by petitioner. He sued in a state court and
recovered damages on the theory that state law, and not the Federal
Employers' Liability Act applied. This Court reversed the judgment,
holding that the federal act applied, and remanded the cause for a
new trial. On February 10, 1921, while the appeal was pending in
the state supreme court, Burtch died, and his widow (now Lula
Carroll) was appointed administratrix. Upon her application, she
was substituted as respondent in this Court.
B. & O. S.W.
R. Co. v. Burtch, 263 U. S. 540.
Three years after the death of Burtch, when the case was back in
the state court of first instance, respondent, by leave of that
court, amended the complaint, and, among other things, alleged for
the first time the death of Burtch as a result of the injury, and
demanded judgment in a single sum for the loss and injury sustained
by the deceased during his lifetime and the pecuniary loss
resulting from his death. A motion to require respondent to state
these claims as separate causes of action was overruled.
Page 280 U. S. 494
The answer affirmatively alleged that, insofar as the amended
complaint was based upon the death of Burtch, the cause of action
was barred because not brought within two years, as required by § 6
of the act (U.S.Code, Tit. 45, § 56), which provides that no action
shall be maintained under the act unless commenced within two years
from the day the cause of action accrued. The jury returned a
verdict for respondent, and the judgment thereon was affirmed by
the state supreme court.
In respect of the statute of limitations, that court held that
the challenged amendment did not introduce a new cause of action,
but was a mere amplification of the original complaint and related
back to the commencement of the action. In support of the ruling,
reliance was had upon the decisions of this Court that neither an
amendment for the first
time setting up the right of the plaintiff to sue as personal
representative,
Mo. Kans. & Tex. Ry. Co. v. Wulf,
226 U. S. 570, nor
an amendment for the first time alleging that the parties were
engaged in interstate commerce,
N.Y. Cent. R. Co. v.
Kinney, 260 U. S. 340,
introduces a new cause of action. Each of these decisions proceeds
upon the ground that the amendment did not set up any different
state of facts as the ground of action, and therefore it related
back to the beginning of the action. In the
Kinney case,
it was pointed out that the original declaration was consistent
with a wrong under either state or federal law, as the facts might
turn out, and that the acts constituting the tort were the same
whichever law gave them that effect.
But here two distinct causes of action are involved, one for the
loss and suffering of the injured person while he lived, and
another for the pecuniary loss to the beneficiaries named in the
act as a result of his death.
St. Louis, Iron M. & S. Ry.
Co. v. Craft, 237 U. S. 648,
237 U. S. 658;
C., B. & Q. R. Co. v. Wells-Dickey Trust Co.,
275 U. S. 161,
275 U. S. 162.
In the
Craft case, it was said:
"Although originating in the same
Page 280 U. S. 495
wrongful act or neglect, the two claims are quite distinct, no
part of either being embraced in the other. . . . One begins where
the other ends, and a recovery upon both in the same action is not
a double recovery for a single wrong, but a single recovery for a
double wrong."
And in the
Wells-Dickey case, it was explicitly held
that for an injury resulting in death the act gives two distinct
causes of action.
The statute, it is true, provides that "there shall be only one
recovery for the same injury;" but this has the effect not of
merging the two rights into a single cause of action, but of
limiting the personal representative
"to one recovery of damages for both, and so to avoid the
needless litigation in separate actions of what would better be
settled once for all in a single action."
St. Louis, Iron M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Craft, supra, p.
237 U. S.
659.
The cause of action which arises from death accrues at the time
of death, and the two-year period of limitation then begins.
Reading Co. v. Koons, 271 U. S. 58. Here,
more than two years having passed, the amendment, introducing as it
did a new and distinct cause of action, does not relate back to the
beginning of the action so as to avoid the bar of the statute of
limitations,
Union Pacific Railway Co. v. Wyler,
158 U. S. 285,
158 U. S.
296-298, and, since the verdict of the jury was for a
single sum, including an undetermined amount as damages for the
death, the judgment must be reversed, and the cause remanded for a
new trial only upon the alleged cause of action for the personal
injuries suffered by the deceased.
The court below gave weight to the fact that this Court, in
disposing of the former appeal, remanded the cause for a new trial,
and suggests that this would not have been done if the complaint
was not subject to amendment so as to allow a submission of the
case to a jury under the federal act. It is enough to say that, on
the former appeal, the right to maintain an action on account
of
Page 280 U. S. 496
Burtch's death was in no way involved, and there is no warrant
for assuming that this Court had in mind any future proceedings in
respect thereof.
We do not stop to discuss the complaint, rather faintly urged,
that the trial court gave conflicting and improper instructions to
the jury on the subject of assumption of risk. That question
received the consideration of this Court in
Texas & Pacific
Railway Co. v. Archibald, 170 U. S. 665,
170 U. S. 671,
and
Choctaw, Oklahoma & G. R. Co. v. McDade,
191 U. S. 64,
191 U. S. 68,
and the rule to be followed in any subsequent trial of this case
will there be found fully and carefully stated. Under the rule
established by these cases, some of the instructions of the court
were over favorable to the railroad company, rather than the
reverse. On the other hand, the charge in respect of the duty of
the employer to furnish safe appliances was without qualification,
and the jury might well have understood that the duty was an
absolute one. That is not the law. The employer is not held to an
absolute responsibility for the reasonably safe condition of the
place, tools, and appliances, but only to the duty of exercising
reasonable care to that end.
Seaboard Air Line Ry. v.
Horton, 233 U. S. 492,
233 U. S. 502;
Yazoo & M. v. R. Co. v. Mullins, 249 U.
S. 531,
249 U. S.
533.
Judgment reversed.