1. Since each of the States of the Union has constitutional
authority to make its own law with respect to persons and events
within its borders, the full faith and credit clause does not
ordinarily require it to substitute for its own local law the
conflicting law of another State, even though that law is of
controlling force in the courts of that State with respect to the
same persons and events. P.
320 U. S.
436.
2. Under the full faith and credit clause, judgments are, for
most purposes, upon a footing different from the local law of a
State when judicial recognition of either is sought in another
State. P.
320 U. S.
437.
3. With few exceptions, the full faith and credit clause renders
that which has been adjudicated in one State
res judicata
to the same extent in every other. P.
320 U. S.
438.
When a state court refuses credit to the judgment of a sister
State, an asserted federal right is denied, and the sufficiency of
the grounds of denial are for this Court to determine. P.
320 U. S.
443.
These results flow from the unifying purpose of the full faith
and credit clause to give nationwide effect to rights judicially
established in any part of the nation. P.
320 U. S.
439.
4. Respondent, resident in Louisiana and there employed by
petitioner, was injured in Texas in the course of his employment.
Respondent sought and was awarded compensation under the Texas
Workmen's Compensation Law. Payments were made as required by the
award, which became final. In Texas, a compensation award which has
become final is
res judicata, and is entitled to the same
faith and credit as a judgment of a court, and an award may not be
had when an employee has
Page 320 U. S. 431
sought and received for his injury compensation under the laws
of another State. Respondent later brought suit in a Louisiana
court for a further recovery under the Louisiana Workmen's
Compensation Law, and obtained a judgment against the employer for
the amount of compensation fixed by that law, less the amount
received under the Texas award.
Held:
(1) Under the full faith and credit clause, the Texas
compensation award was a bar to recovery in the Louisiana
proceeding.
Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Schendel,
270 U. S. 611,
followed. P.
320 U. S.
441.
(2) The interest of Louisiana in awarding compensation to
Louisiana employees who are injured out of the State --
vis-a-vis the interest of Texas in awarding compensation
for an injury occurring within its borders -- is not sufficient to
permit it to ignore the bar of the Texas award. P.
320 U. S.
440.
(3) The liability established by the Louisiana judgment is not
reconcilable with the rights conferred on the employer by the Texas
award and the full faith and credit clause. P.
320 U. S.
442.
(4) Whether the proceeding before the Texas board be regarded as
a "judicial proceeding" or its award is a "record" within the
meaning of the full faith and credit clause and the Act of Congress
implementing it, both judicial proceedings and records are required
to be given full faith and credit. P.
320 U. S.
443.
(5) The suggestion that the Texas award does not bar the
recovery in Louisiana because the employee's suit there was on a
different cause of action is untenable. P.
320 U. S.
443.
It is unnecessary to decide what effect would be required to be
given to the Texas award if, under Texas law, an award of
compensation in another State would not bar an award in Texas. P.
320 U. S.
443.
10 So. 2d 109 reversed.
Certiorari, 319 U.S. 734, to review the affirmance of a judgment
for the plaintiff in a suit by an employee against an employer to
recover compensation for an injury received in the course of the
employment. The highest court of the State refused writs of
certiorari and review.
Page 320 U. S. 432
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question for decision is whether, under the full faith and
credit clause, Art. IV, § 1 of the Constitution of the United
States, an award of compensation for personal injury under the
Texas Workmen's Compensation Law, Title 130 of the Revised Civil
Statutes of Texas, bars a further recovery of compensation for the
same injury under the Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Law, Title
34, Chapter 15 of the Louisiana General Statutes.
Magnolia Petroleum Company, petitioner here, employed respondent
in Louisiana as a laborer in connection with the drilling of oil
wells. In the course of his employment, respondent, a Louisiana
resident, went from Louisiana to Texas and, while working there for
petitioner on an oil well, he was injured by a falling drill stem.
He sought and procured in Texas an award of compensation for his
injury under its Workmen's Compensation Law, [
Footnote 1] and petitioner's insurer made payments
of compensation
Page 320 U. S. 433
as required by the statute and the award. The award became final
in accordance with the terms of the Texas statute. [
Footnote 2]
Respondent then brought the present proceeding in the Louisiana
District Court to recover compensation for his injury under the
Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Law. [
Footnote 3] Petitioner filed exceptions to respondent's
petition
Page 320 U. S. 434
on the ground that the recovery sought was barred as
res
judicata by the Texas award which, by virtue of the
constitutional command, was entitled in the Louisiana courts to
full faith and credit. The District Court overruled the exceptions
and gave judgment for the amount of the compensation fixed by the
Louisiana statute, after deducting the amount of the Texas
payments. The Louisiana Court of Appeal affirmed, 10 So. 2d 109,
and the Supreme Court of Louisiana refused writs of certiorari and
review for the reason that it found "no error of law in the
judgment complained of." We granted certiorari, 319 U.S. 734,
because of the importance of the constitutional question presented
and to resolve an apparent conflict of the decision below with our
decisions in
Chicago, R.I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Schendel,
270 U. S. 611, and
Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.
S. 287;
cf. Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial
Accident Comm'n, 294 U. S. 532;
Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm'n,
306 U. S. 493.
In Texas, a compensation award against the employer's insurer
(with exceptions not here applicable,
cf. Revised
Page 320 U. S. 435
Civil Statutes, Art. 8306, § 5) is explicitly made by statute in
lieu of any other recovery for injury to the employee, since Art.
8306, § 3, provides that employees subject to the Act
"shall have no right of action against their employer or against
any agent, servant, or employee of said employer for damages for
personal injuries . . . but such employees . . . shall look for
compensation solely to the association [the insurer]."
A compensation award which has become final "is entitled to the
same faith and credit as a judgment of a court."
See Ocean
Accident & Guarantee Corp. v. Pruitt, 58 S.W.2d 41, 44,
45, holding that an award is
res judicata, not only as to
all matters litigated, but as to all matters which could have been
litigated in the proceeding with respect to the right to
compensation for the injury. To the same effect are
Traders
& General Ins. Co. v. Baker, 111 S.W.2d 837, 839, 840;
Middlebrook v. Texas Indemnity Ins. Co., 112 S.W.2d 311,
315;
cf. Federal Surety Co. v. Cook, 119 Tex. 89, 24
S.W.2d 394. The Texas Court of Civil Appeals formerly held that a
Texas employee could recover compensation of his Texas employer for
an injury in another state for which he had already recovered
compensation in that state.
Texas Employers' Ins. Assn. v.
Price, 300 S.W. 667. But, in declining to review the case, the
Texas Supreme Court expressly pointed out that this ruling had not
been challenged, and that it was leaving the question undecided,
300 S.W. 672. The right of a second recovery in such circumstances
was promptly abolished by statute. Revised Civil Statutes, Art.
8306, § 19. And, under this statute, a compensation award may not
be had in Texas if the employee has claimed and received
compensation for his injury under the laws of another state.
Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cason, 132 Tex. 393, 396, 124 S.W.2d
321.
Page 320 U. S. 436
The Louisiana Court of Appeal recognized that Texas had
jurisdiction to award compensation to respondent for the injury
received while working for petitioner within the state, and that
the award has the same force and effect in Texas as a judgment
rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction in that state. But it
thought that full faith and credit did not require the Louisiana
courts to give effect to the judgment as
res judicata
because Louisiana, despite the command of the full faith and credit
clause, was entitled to give effect to its own statute prescribing
compensation for resident employees of a resident employer even
though the injury occurred outside the state.
It does not appear, nor is it contended that Louisiana, more
than Texas, allows in its own courts a second recovery of
compensation for a single injury. The contention is that, since
Louisiana is better satisfied with the measure of recovery allowed
by its own laws, it may deny full faith and credit to the Texas
award, which respondent has procured by his election to pursue his
remedy in that state. In thus refusing, on the basis of state law
and policy, to give effect to the Texas award as a final
adjudication of respondent's claim for compensation for his injury
suffered in Texas, the Louisiana court ignored the distinction,
long recognized and applied by this Court and recently emphasized
in
Williams v. North Carolina, supra, 317 U. S.
294-296, between the faith and credit required to be
given to judgments and that to which local common and statutory law
is entitled under the Constitution and laws of the United
States.
In the case of local law, since each of the states of the Union
has constitutional authority to make its own law with respect to
persons and events within its borders, the full faith and credit
clause does not ordinarily require it to substitute for its own law
the conflicting law of another state, even though that law is of
controlling force in the courts of that state with respect to the
same persons and
Page 320 U. S. 437
events.
Pink v. A.A.A. Highway Exp., Inc., 314 U.
S. 201,
314 U. S.
209-211, and cases cited;
Klaxon Co. v. Stentor
Electric Co., 313 U. S. 487,
313 U. S.
496-498. It was for this reason that we held that the
state of the employer and employee is free to apply its own
compensation law to the injury of the employee, rather than the law
of another state where the injury occurred.
Alaska Packers
Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm'n, supra, 294 U. S.
544-550. And, for like reasons, we held also that the
state of the place of injury is free to apply its own law to the
exclusion of the law of the state of the employer and employee.
Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission,
supra, 306 U. S.
502-505.
But it does not follow that the employee who has sought and
recovered an award of compensation in either state may then have
recourse to the laws and courts of the other to recover a second or
additional award for the same injury. Where a court must make
choice of one of two conflicting statutes of different states and
apply it to a cause of action which has not been previously
litigated, there can be no plea of
res judicata. But, when
the employee who has recovered compensation for his injury in one
state seeks a second recovery in another, he may be met by the plea
that full faith and credit requires that his demand, which has
become
res judicata in one state, must be recognized as
such in every other.
The full faith and credit clause and the Act of Congress
implementing it have, for most purposes, placed a judgment on a
different footing from a statute of one state judicial recognition
of which is sought in another. Article IV, § 1, of the Constitution
commands that "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State
to the public Acts, Records, and Judicial Proceedings of every
other State," and provides that "Congress may by general Laws
prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings
shall be proved, and the Effect thereof." And Congress has provided
that judgments
"shall have such
Page 320 U. S. 438
faith and credit given to them in every court within the United
States as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State from
which they are taken."
Act of May 26, 1790, c. 11, 1 Stat. 122, as amended, 28 U.S.C. §
687.
From the beginning, this Court has held that these provisions
have made that which has been adjudicated in one state
res
judicata to the same extent in every other.
Hampton v.
McConnell, 3 Wheat. 234,
16 U. S. 235;
Christmas v.
Russell, 5 Wall. 290;
Fauntleroy v. Lum,
210 U. S. 230;
Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, 252 U. S. 411;
Milwaukee County v. White Co., 296 U.
S. 268;
Davis v. Davis, 305 U. S.
32,
305 U. S. 40;
Titus v. Wallick, 306 U. S. 282,
306 U. S.
291-292;
Williams v. North Carolina, supra.
Even though we assume for present purposes that the command of the
Constitution and the statute is not all-embracing, and that there
may be exceptional cases in which the judgment of one state may not
override the laws and policy of another, [
Footnote 4] this Court is the final arbiter of the
extent of the exceptions.
Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial
Accident Commission, supra, 294 U. S. 547;
Titus v. Wallick, supra, 306 U. S. 291.
And we pointed out in
Williams v. North Carolina, supra,
318 U. S.
294-295, that "the actual exceptions have been few and
far between. . . ."
We are aware of no such exception in the case of a money
judgment rendered in a civil suit. Nor are we aware of any
considerations of local policy or law which could rightly be deemed
to impair the force and effect which the full faith and credit
clause and the Act of Congress require to be given to such a
judgment outside the state of its rendition.
Milwaukee County
v. White Co., supra, 296 U. S.
277-278.
Page 320 U. S. 439
The constitutional command requires a state to enforce a
judgment of a sister state for its taxes,
Milwaukee County v.
White Co., supra, or for a gambling debt,
Fauntleroy v.
Lum, supra, or for damages for wrongful death,
Kenney v.
Supreme Lodge, supra, although the suit in which the judgment
was obtained could not have been maintained under the laws and
policy of the forum to which the judgment is brought. It compels
enforcement of a judgment in that forum even though a suit upon the
original cause of action was barred there by limitations before the
judgment was procured.
Christmas v. Russell, supra; Roche v.
McDonald, 275 U. S. 449. It
demands recognition of it even though the statute on which the
judgment was founded need not be applied in the state of the forum
because in conflict with the laws and policy of that state.
Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, supra; Titus v. Wallick, supra;
Williams v. North Carolina, supra.
These consequences flow from the clear purpose of the full faith
and credit clause to establish throughout the federal system the
salutary principle of the common law that a litigation, once
pursued to judgment, shall be as conclusive of the rights of the
parties in every other court as in that where the judgment was
rendered, so that a cause of action merged in a judgment in one
state is likewise merged in every other. The full faith and credit
clause, like the commerce clause, thus became a nationally unifying
force. It altered the status of the several states as independent
foreign sovereignties, each free to ignore rights and obligations
created under the laws or established by the judicial proceedings
of the others, by making each an integral part of a single nation,
in which rights judicially established in any part are given
nationwide application.
Milwaukee County v. White Co.,
supra, 276-277;
Williams v. North Carolina, supra,
317 U. S. 295.
Because there is a full faith and credit clause, a defendant
Page 320 U. S. 440
may not a second time challenge the validity of the plaintiff's
right which has ripened into a judgment, and a plaintiff may not,
for his single cause of action, secure a second or a greater
recovery.
Here, both Texas and Louisiana have undertaken to adjudicate the
rights of the same parties arising from a single injury sustained
in the course of employment under the same contract. Each state has
awarded to respondent compensation for that injury. But whether the
Texas award purported also to adjudicate the rights and duties of
the parties under the Louisiana law, or to control persons and
courts in Louisiana, is irrelevant to our present inquiry. For
Texas is without power to give extraterritorial effect to its laws.
See New York Life Ins. Co. v. Head, 234 U.
S. 149;
Home Insurance Co. v. Dick,
281 U. S. 397. The
significant question in this case is whether the full faith and
credit clause has deprived Louisiana of the power to deny that the
Texas award has the same binding effect on the parties in Louisiana
as it has in Texas.
It is not, as the state court thought, a sufficient answer to
the bar of the Texas award to assert that Louisiana has a
recognized interest in awarding compensation to Louisiana employees
who are injured out of the state,
see Alaska Packers Assn. v.
Industrial Accident Commission, supra, for Texas, the state in
which the injury occurred, has a like interest in making an award,
see Pacific Employers Insurance Co. v. Industrial Accident
Commission, supra. And, in each of the cases we have cited,
the state to which the judgment was brought had an interest in the
subject matter of the suit and a public policy contrary to that of
the state in which the judgment was obtained. No convincing reason
is advanced for saying that Louisiana has a greater interest in
awarding compensation for an injury suffered in an industrial
accident than North Carolina had in
Page 320 U. S. 441
determining the marital status of its domiciliary against whom a
divorce decree had been rendered in another state,
Williams v.
North Carolina, supra, or Mississippi in stamping out gambling
within its borders,
Fauntleroy v. Lum, supra, or South
Carolina in requiring a parent to support his child who was
domiciled within that state,
Yarborough v. Yarborough,
290 U. S. 202.
In each of these cases, the words and purpose of the full faith
and credit clause were thought to demand that the interest of the
state in which the judgment was obtained and was
res
judicata should override the laws and policy of the forum to
which the judgment was taken. And we can perceive no tenable ground
for saying that a compensation award need not be given the same
effect as
res judicata in another state as it has in the
state where rendered. [
Footnote
5]
Page 320 U. S. 442
Such was the decision of this Court in
Chicago, R.I. &
P. Ry. Co. v. Schendel, supra, in which recovery of an award
of compensation under the Iowa Workmen's Compensation Act was held
to bar recovery in a suit against the employer in Minnesota to
recover for the same injury under the Federal Employers' Liability
Act. Both sides had, as in this case, allowed recovery, as they
were free to do but for the full faith and credit clause. This
Court held that the employee, having had his remedy by the judgment
in Iowa, was precluded by the full faith and credit clause from
pursuing a remedy for his injury in another state. The remedies
afforded to respondent by the Texas and Louisiana Workmen's
Compensation Laws are likewise rendered mutually exclusive by the
Texas judgment and the full faith and credit clause. The Texas
award, being a bar to any further recovery of compensation for
respondent's injury, is, by virtue of the full faith and credit
clause, exclusive of his remedy under the Louisiana Act.
It lends no support to the decision of the Louisiana court in
this case to say that Louisiana has chosen to be more generous with
an employee than Texas has. Indeed, no constitutional question
would be presented if Louisiana chose to be generous to the
employee out of the general funds in its Treasury. But, here, it is
petitioner who is required to provide further payments to
respondent, contrary to the terms of the Texas award, which, if the
full faith and credit clause is to be given any effect, was a
conclusive determination between the parties that petitioner should
be liable for no more than the amount of the Texas award. For this
reason, it is not enough to say that a practical reconciliation of
the interests of Texas and Louisiana has been effected by the
Louisiana court. There has been no reconciliation of the liability
established by the Louisiana judgment with the rights conferred on
petitioner by the Texas award and the full faith and credit
clause.
Page 320 U. S. 443
Here, the finding of the Louisiana court that the Texas award
had the force and effect of a judgment of a court of that state,
and is
res judicata there, is in conformity to the
determinations of the courts of Texas, and has not been challenged
by the parties. We have no occasion to consider what effect would
be required to be given to the Texas award if the Texas courts held
that an award of compensation in another state would not bar an
award in Texas, for, as we have seen, Texas does not allow such a
second recovery. And, if the award of compensation in Texas were
not
res judicata there, full faith and credit would, of
course, be no bar to the recovery of an award in another state.
Chicago, R.I. & P. R. Co. v. Elder, 270 U.
S. 611,
270 U. S.
622-623.
Whether the proceeding before the State Industrial Accident
Board in Texas be regarded as a "judicial proceeding" or its award
is a "record" within the meaning of the full faith and credit
clause and the Act of Congress, the result is the same. For
judicial proceedings and records of the state are both required to
have
"such faith and credit given to them in every court within the
United States as they have by law or usage in the courts of the
State from which they are taken."
The decision of the state court is not supported by the
suggestion that the Texas award is not
res judicata in
Louisiana because respondent's suit there was on a different cause
of action. When a state court refuses credit to the judgment of a
sister state because of its opinion of the nature of the cause of
action or the judgment in which it is merged, an asserted federal
right is denied, and the sufficiency of the grounds of denial are
for this Court to decide.
Titus v. Wallick, supra,
306 U. S. 291,
and cases cited,
and see Adam v. Saenger, 303 U. S.
59,
303 U. S. 64,
and cases cited. Respondent's injury in Texas did not give rise to
two causes of action merely because recovery in each state is
Page 320 U. S. 444
under a different statute, or because each affords a different
measure of recovery. [
Footnote
6]
Chicago, R.I. & P. R. Co. v. Schendel, supra;
Baltimore S.S. Co. v. Phillips, 274 U.
S. 316;
see Wabash R. Co. v. Hayes,
234 U. S. 86,
234 U. S. 90.
The grounds of recovery are the same in one state as in the other
-- the injury to the employee in the course of his employment. The
whole tendency of our decisions under the full faith and credit
clause is to require a plaintiff to try his whole cause of action
and his whole case at one time. He cannot split up his claim and,
"
a fortiori, he cannot divide the grounds of recovery."
United States v. California & Oregon Land Co.,
192 U. S. 355,
192 U. S. 358.
Respondent was free to pursue his remedy in either state, but,
having chosen to seek it in Texas, where the award was
res
judicata, the full faith and credit clause precludes him from
again seeking a remedy in Louisiana upon the same grounds. The fact
that a suitor has been denied a remedy by one state because it does
not afford a remedy for the particular wrong alleged, may not bar
recovery in another state which does provide a remedy.
See
Troxell v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 227 U.
S. 434;
cf. Ash Sheep Co. v. United States,
252 U. S. 159,
252 U. S. 170.
But, as we decided in the
Schendel case it is a very
different matter to say that recovery can be had in every state
which affords a remedy.
The suggestion that there is a second and different cause of
action in Louisiana merely because Louisiana law authorizes
compensation, and in a different measure, than does Texas, or
because the jurisdiction of the court of one state depends on the
place of the injury and that of the other on the place of the
employment contract, would, if accepted, prove too much. Apart from
the demands of full faith and credit, recovery in a transitory
action for injury
Page 320 U. S. 445
to person or property, whether in tort or for compensation, can,
of course, only be had in conformity to the law of the state where
the action is maintained. Even where the state of the forum adopts
and applies as its own the law of the state where the injury was
inflicted, the extent to which it shall apply in its own courts a
rule of law of another state is itself a question of local law of
the forum.
Finney v. Guy, 189 U.
S. 335;
Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Co.,
supra, 313 U. S.
496-497;
cf. Worcester County T. Co. v. Riley,
302 U. S. 292,
302 U. S. 299.
And the law of a state is embodied as well in its common law rules
as in its statutes.
Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S.
64,
304 U. S. 78-79;
see Mr. Justice Holmes, dissenting in
Black &
White Taxicab & Transfer Co. v. Brown & Yellow Taxicab
& Transfer Co., 276 U. S. 518,
276 U. S.
532-536.
If an employee employed in one state, but injured in another,
has a different cause of action for compensation in each state
because each has its own compensation statute, it could as well be
argued in any case where plaintiff has recovered a judgment in one
state, and seeks a second recovery in a second state for the same
injury, that he is suing upon a second and different cause of
action. But it has never been thought that an actionable personal
injury gives rise to as many causes of action as there are states
whose laws will permit a suit to recover for the injury, or that,
despite the full faith and credit clause, the injured person, more
than one entitled to recover for breach of contract, could go from
state to state to recover in each damages or compensation for his
injury. A judgment in tort or in contract is not immune from the
requirement of full faith and credit because the successful
plaintiff could have maintained his suit under the law of other
states, and have secured a larger recovery in some, or because the
jurisdiction of the court in one state to hear the cause may depend
upon some facts different from the facts necessary to sustain the
jurisdiction in another.
Cf. Baltimore S.S. Co. v. Phillips,
supra; 84 U. S. Michigan
Ins. Bank, 17 Wall.
Page 320 U. S. 446
545;
Wabash R. Co. v. Hayes, supra; Kenney v. Supreme Lodge,
supra. And we cannot say that a workmen's compensation award
for injury stands on any different footing. In fact,
Chicago,
R.I. & P. R. Co. v. Schendel, supra, held that it did not,
and we see no reason to depart from its ruling.
Reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
An employer becomes subject to the Act by becoming a subscriber
under it by giving notice to the Industrial Accident Board (Texas
Rev.Civ.Stat. Title 130, Art. 8308, § 18a) and providing insurance
required by the Act (Art. 8308). If an employee of a subscriber
sustains an injury in the course of his employment, he is entitled
to compensation without regard to the fault of the employer (Art.
8306, § 3b), unless he has given timely notice of his intention not
to waive his rights of action at common law and under other
statutes of Texas. In that event, he may sue for the remedies which
they afford (Art. 8306, § 3a). Employees of nonsubscribers are not
entitled to workmen's compensation, but may sue to recover for
injuries received in the course of their employment without being
subject to certain common law defenses (Art. 8306, §§ 1, 4). When
an employee is entitled to compensation, he has no other right of
action against the employer for injuries (Art. 8306, § 3).
The statute specifies the amounts of compensation, including
expenses, payable for various injuries (Art. 8306, §§ 6-18). It
provides that awards are to be made in the first instance by the
Industrial Accident Board (Art. 8307). In order to obtain a review
of an award, a party must within 20 days give notice that he will
not abide by it and within 20 days after giving notice, must file
suit in an appropriate court (Art. 8307, § 5). In such a suit, the
trial is
de novo (
id.). If no such notice is
given, or no such suit is filed within the times prescribed, the
award becomes final (
id.).
[
Footnote 2]
Respondent filed with the Texas Industrial Accident Board a
claim for compensation for his injury under the Texas Workmen's
Compensation Law, as is the usual method of instituting a
proceeding before the Board. Without awaiting an award on
respondent's claim, petitioner's insurer paid respondent
compensation for his injury at the statutory maximum rate for
seventy-three weeks. A dispute as to the proper prognosis of
respondent's injury, a request for advice made by respondent to the
Board, and a suspension by the insurer of further compensation
payments to respondent, on the ground that his total disability had
terminated, all prompted the Board to set the case for a hearing on
his pending claim. Respondent received notice of the hearing and
was requested to furnish medical evidence of his continued
disability. Upon his failure to do this, the Board entered, on
December 3, 1940, as the full compensation for his injury, an award
of a lump sum for total disability for 75 weeks and of weekly
payments for partial disability for a further period of 125 weeks,
and directed that payments already made by the insurer be credited
upon the award. Respondent was notified as to the appeal he was
required to take if he was dissatisfied with the award. No appeal
was taken, and the award became final. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat., Art.
8307, § 5. Respondent has refused payments which have been tendered
to him subsequent to the making of the Texas award. On December 18,
1940, he began the present suit in Louisiana.
[
Footnote 3]
The statute is applicable to all employees in certain specified
hazardous occupations (including the work performed by respondent),
and to employees in other occupations by voluntary contract between
the employer and the employee. La.Gen.Stat. Title 34, Ch. 15, §
4391. Such employees as receive injuries in the course of their
employment are entitled to compensation (§ 4392) in specified
amounts (§ 4398), unless the contract of employment provides
otherwise (§ 4393), whether the injury is or is not due to the
fault of the employer (§ 4427). If the employee elects to be
covered under the act, but the employer elects not to be, then, in
suits by the employee to recover for injuries received in the
course of his employment, certain common law defenses are abolished
(§ 4394). The compensation award may be fixed by agreement of the
parties (§ 4407), or may be obtained by suit in the district court
(§ 4408), with right of appeal to the appropriate appellate courts
(§ 4409). And, as in the present case, the statute is deemed under
some circumstances to be applicable to injuries received by the
employee without the state.
Hargis v. McWilliams Co.,
Inc., 9 La.App. 108, 119 So. 88;
Selser v. Bragmans Bluff
Lumber Co., La.App. 146 So. 690.
[
Footnote 4]
See, e.g., Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U.
S. 657;
Fall v. Eastin, 215 U. S.
1;
Olmsted v. Olmsted, 216 U.
S. 386;
Converse v. Hamilton, 224 U.
S. 243;
Hood v. McGehee, 237 U.
S. 611;
Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U.
S. 629,
294 U. S. 642;
cf. Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U.
S. 265,
127 U. S. 293,
with Milwaukee County v. White Co., supra, 296 U. S.
278.
[
Footnote 5]
But cf. American Law Institute, Restatement of Conflict
of Laws (1934) § 403:
"Award already had under the Workmen's Compensation Act of
another state will not bar a proceeding under an applicable Act,
but the amount paid on a prior award in another state will be
credited on the second award."
This would seem to be intended as nothing more than a statement
of local rules of conflict of laws when unaffected by the full
faith and credit clause, since full faith and credit, if it does
not require that a first award bar a second, would not compel
credits upon the second award of payments made under the first. If
more was intended, the statement is, as the Advisers to the
American Law Institute stated, "surprising." Proceedings of
American Law Institute (1932) Vol. X, p. 76. It is the more so as
the statement would then conflict with the
ratio decidendi
of
Chicago, R.I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Schendel,
270 U. S. 611,
which had been decided some six years before. Even as a matter of
local law, while the decision of the state courts on this point are
in conflict, the following are contrary to the rule expressed in
the Restatement:
Hughey v. Ware, 34 N.M. 29, 276 P. 27;
Tidwell v. Chattanooga Boiler & T. Co., 163 Tenn. 420,
43 S.W.2d 221; 163 Tenn. 648, 45 S.W.2d 528;
De Gray v. Miller
Bros.Const. Co., 106 Vt. 259, 277, 278, 173 A. 556.
[
Footnote 6]
Any implication to the contrary in
Troxell v. Delaware, L.
& W. R. Co., 227 U. S. 434,
must be considered as overruled by
Wabash R. Co. v. Hayes,
234 U. S. 86,
234 U. S. 90;
cf. Baltimore S.S. Co. v. Phillips, 274 U.
S. 316,
274 U. S.
323.
By MR. JUSTICE JACKSON.
I concur with the opinion of the CHIEF JUSTICE.
If the Court were to reconsider
Williams v. North
Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, in
the light of the views expressed by MR. JUSTICE BLACK, I should
adhere to the views I expressed in dissent there. Until we do so, I
consider myself bound by that decision. Whatever might be the law
if that case had never been decided, I am unable to see why the
controlling principles it announced under the full faith and credit
clause to reverse the North Carolina decision therein do not
require reversal of the Louisiana decision under review. I agree
with the dissent that Louisiana has a legitimate interest to
protect in the subject matter of this litigation, but so did North
Carolina in the
Williams case. I am unable to see how
Louisiana can be constitutionally free to apply its own workmen's
compensation law to its citizens despite a previous adjudication in
another state if North Carolina was not free to apply its own
matrimonial policy to its own citizens after judgment on the
subject in Nevada. Is Louisiana's social interest in seeing that
its labor contracts carry adequate workmen's compensation superior
constitutionally to North Carolina's interest in seeing that people
who contract marriage there are protected in the rights they
acquire? It is true that someone might have to take care of the
Louisiana citizen who is injured but inadequately compensated in
Texas, as it was true in the
Williams case that someone
might have to care for those deprived of their marriage status by
the foreign divorce decree.
Page 320 U. S. 447
Overruling a precedent always introduces some confusion, and the
necessity for it may be unfortunate. But it is as nothing to
keeping on our books utterances to which we ourselves will give
full faith and credit only if the outcome pleases us. I shall abide
by the
Williams case until it is taken off our books, and,
for that reason, concur in the decision herein.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.
While I have joined in the opinion of MR. JUSTICE BLACK, certain
observations in the concurring opinion lead me to add a few
words.
I do not agree with the view that the full faith and credit
clause is to be enforced "only if the outcome pleases us." We are
dealing here with highly controversial subjects, where honest
differences of opinion are almost certain to occur. Each case
involves a clash between the policies of two sovereign States. The
question is not which policy we prefer; it is whether the two
conflicting policies can somehow be accommodated. The command of
the full faith and credit clause frequently makes a reconciliation
of the two interests impossible. One must give way in the larger
interest of the federal union. The question in each case is
whether, as a practical matter, there is room for adjustment,
consistent with the requirements of full faith and credit.
Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.
S. 287, is a recent example. One domiciled in Nevada was
granted a divorce from his North Carolina spouse on notice by
publication. The question for us was whether that decree was a
defense to a prosecution for bigamy in North Carolina. Such
questions of status --
i.e., marital capacity, involve
conflicts between the policies of two States which are quite
irreconcilable as compared with the present situation.
If the claim under the Texas Act had been denied because of
statutory defenses accorded the employer, I do not
Page 320 U. S. 448
suppose that the requirements of full faith and credit would bar
the subsequent claim under a Louisiana statute which did not
recognize such defenses. At least
Troxell v. Delaware, L. &
W. R Co., 227 U. S. 434,
which has never been overruled, points to that result, for it held
that a denial of recovery under a state act was no barrier to a
suit under a federal act for the same injury. If the full faith and
credit clause would not prevent a recovery under the Louisiana Act
where an award under the Texas Act had been denied, I do not see
how Louisiana can be prevented from granting a recovery after Texas
has made an award. The action of Texas would be as definite and
final an adjudication of the rights and duties of the parties under
the Texas statute in the one case as in the other. Moreover, the
two statutes are not mutually exclusive as was true in
Chicago,
R.I. & P. R. Co. v. Schendel, 270 U.
S. 611. Thus, a determination that an employer is under
the Texas Act does not mean, conversely, that he is excluded from
the coverage of Louisiana's law.
The principle of the
Troxell case seems apposite here,
since the claim in Texas was only one for "compensation under the
Employers Liability Act" of that State. And the Texas award
purported to do no more than to adjudicate rights and duties under
the Texas Act. For it provided that, when fully paid, it would
discharge the insurer "from all liability by reason of this claim
for compensation." If the Texas award had undertaken to adjudicate
the rights and duties of the parties under the Louisiana contract
of employment, which we are told carries the right to compensation
under the Louisiana Act (10 So. 2d 109, 112), the result would be
quite different. Then the judgment, like the divorce decree in the
Williams case, would undertake to regulate the
relationship of the parties, or their rights and duties which flow
from it, as respects their undertakings in another State. And,
since Texas would have had jurisdiction over the parties, its
Page 320 U. S. 449
decree would be a bar to the present action in Louisiana. But
there is nothing in the Texas proceeding or in the Texas award to
indicate that that was either intended or done. The most charitable
construction is that Texas undertook to adjust the rights and
duties of the parties and to regulate their relationship only so
long as they remained subject to the jurisdiction of Texas.
Under the circumstances disclosed, the situation is thus quite
different from the usual transitory action, or from a decree which
undertakes to sever marital bonds between one domiciled in a state
and a nonresident. But, even if the Texas award were less clear
than I think it is, I would resolve all doubts against an inference
that rights under the Louisiana contract were adjudicated in Texas.
Such a course seems to me essential so that the greatest possible
accommodations of the interests of the two States, consistent with
the requirements of full faith and credit, may be had whether the
matter be divorce, workmen's compensation, or any other subject on
which state policies differ.
On its face,
Yarborough v. Yarborough, 290 U.
S. 202, might seem to look the other way. There, a
Georgia decree of permanent alimony for a child was held to be
entitled to full faith and credit in South Carolina, where the
child subsequently sought additional allowances. But the Georgia
decree was more clearly an adjudication of the aggregate liability
of the defendant than was the Texas award in the present case, for
it relieved the father, on compliance with its provisions, of "all
payments of alimony." 290 U.S. at
290 U. S. 207.
Moreover, the father was not a resident of South Carolina, but had
long been domiciled in Georgia. The Court specifically reserved the
question whether the Georgia decree would be entitled to full faith
and credit as a final discharge of the duty to support had the
father been domiciled in South Carolina. 290 U.S.
Page 320 U. S. 450
p.
290 U. S. 213.
Here, the Texas award is not only a limited one. The employee is
domiciled in Louisiana, the employer is authorized to do business
in Louisiana. The employment contract is a Louisiana contract.
Louisiana has such a considerable interest at stake that I would
allow its policy to be obliterated or subordinated only in case
what took place in Texas is irreconcilable with what Louisiana now
seeks to do. I do not think it is.
It is thus apparent that the decision of
Williams v. North
Carolina is no shelter in the present controversy.
MR. JUSTICE MURPHY joins in this dissent.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK, dissenting.
The respondent Hunt is a resident of Louisiana, employed in that
state by the petitioner and sent by the petitioner to do work in
Texas. While in Texas, he was seriously injured in the course of
his employment. Confined to a hospital, he was told that he could
not recover compensation unless he signed two forms presented to
him. As found by the Louisiana trial judge, there was printed on
each of the forms "in small type" the designation "Industrial
Accident Board, Austin, Texas." To get his compensation, Hunt
signed the forms, and the Texas insurer began to pay. Returning to
his home in Louisiana, Hunt apparently discovered that his
interests would be more fully protected under Louisiana law, and
notified the insurer of an intention to claim under the statute of
that state. The insurer immediately stopped payment to him and
notified the Texas Board to that effect. Four days later, without
any request from Hunt, the Board notified him at his Louisiana home
that a hearing would be held in Texas within two and a half weeks
"to determine the liability of the insurance company" under Texas
law. Hunt did not participate in that proceeding. The Texas Board
thereafter made an award to him which, under the
Page 320 U. S. 451
law of Texas, was equivalent to a judgment against the insurer.
Before the Texas award became final Hunt, who had declined to
accept any money under it, filed suit against his employer in the
courts of Louisiana under the Workmen's Compensation Law of
Louisiana. He recovered a judgment for a substantially larger sum
than had been allowed him under the Texas award, from which the
Louisiana court deducted the sum he had already received from the
Texas insurer.
The employer has contended here that the Texas award against the
insurer was a judgment which, under the full faith and credit
clause, precluded the employee from any further relief in the
courts of Louisiana. The Court today agrees with the employer
holding that while, in
"exceptional cases . . . , the judgment of one state may not
override the laws and policy of another, this court is the final
arbiter of the extent of the exceptions."
The Court declines to recognize an exception in the case now
before us, buttressing its conclusion with a contention that the
case of
Chicago, R.I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Schendel,
270 U. S. 611,
requires such a result.
I disagree. As I see it, this case properly involves two
separate legal questions: (1) Did Texas intend the award of its
Industrial Accident Board against the insurer to bar the right
granted the employee by the Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Law to
collect from his employer for the same injury the difference
between the compensation allowed by Texas and the more generous
compensation allowed by Louisiana? (2) Assuming the Texas award was
intended to constitute such a bar, does the interest of Louisiana
in regulating the employment contracts of its residents
nevertheless permit it to grant that larger measure of compensation
which as a matter of local policy it believes necessary? The
decision of the Court on both of these issues appears to me to be
wrong.
Page 320 U. S. 452
I
Where a state court refuses to recognize the judgment of a
sister state as a bar to an asserted cause of action, the full
faith and credit clause cannot raise a federal question unless the
judgment would have been a bar to a similar suit in that sister
state. R.S. § 905, U.S.C. Title 28, § 687;
Titus v.
Wallick, 306 U. S. 282.
Even where the judgment would bar the suit in the sister state,
"as this Court has often recognized, there are many judgments
which need not be given the same force and effect abroad which they
might have at home, and there are some, though valid in the state
where rendered, to which the full faith and credit clause gives no
force elsewhere."
Dissenting opinion,
Yarborough v. Yarborough,
290 U. S. 202,
290 U. S.
213-215. Whether Texas intended that its award should
bar the employee here from recovering compensation under the
Louisiana law is an issue upon which Texas courts have not spoken.
In fact, they absolutely refuse to entertain any suits at all based
on the Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Law.
Johnson v.
Employers Liability Corp., Tex.Civ.App. 99 S.W.2d 979.
The general rule of
res judicata announced by Texas
courts is that a judgment on the merits constitutes
"a finality as to the claim or demand in controversy, concluding
parties and those in privity with them . . . as to every matter
which was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim or
demand, [and] as to any other admissible matter which might have
been offered for that purpose."
Rio Bravo Oil Co. v. Hebert, 130 Tex. 1, 8, 9, 106
S.W.2d 242, 246. The opinion of Section A of the Texas Commission
of Appeals in
Ocean Accident & Guarantee Corp. v.
Pruitt, 58 S.W.2d 41, 44, 45, relied upon by the Court,
presents an application of this rule to Texas workmen's
compensation awards. There, it was held that an employee who had
been denied a compensation award by
Page 320 U. S. 453
the Accident Board could not bring a second proceeding before
the Board against the same insurer to recover compensation for the
same injuries. In the instant case, the situation is entirely
different. The parties are not the same, the issues are not the
same, and the two proceedings are not under the same Act. The
proceeding in this case before the Texas Board was against the
insurer only, and the award entered, by its express terms, was
limited to a release of the insurance company from further
liability. The liability of the employer under Louisiana law was
not in issue before the Board, and could not have been put in
issue. The employer was not a party to that proceeding, nor was
there "privity" between the insurer and the employer, since the
insurer's liability did not extend to rights which the employee
might have against his employer under Louisiana law. Moreover, the
jurisdiction of the Accident Board is limited to administration of
the Texas Workmen's Compensation Act; even if the issues of
liability under Louisiana law had been raised, they could not have
been decided by that Board. The decision of this Court today,
therefore, is tantamount to holding that Texas intended to
extinguish a claim against the employer in a proceeding in which
the employer was not a party and the issue of its liability under
Louisiana law was not allowed to be raised. I cannot impute such an
intention to Texas.
The statutes of Texas lend support to the view that the Accident
Board's award was not intended to bar the employee's rights against
his employer arising under the law of Louisiana. Under the Texas
statutes, an award of the Accident Board neither adds to nor
subtracts from an employer's liability to an injured employee. That
liability is fixed not by an award, but by a tripartite contract
implied by the Texas statute between the employer, the employee,
and the insurer, under which the employee
Page 320 U. S. 454
agrees not to sue the employer for occupational injuries under
the common law or statutes of Texas. [
Footnote 2/1] An employee who fails to elect to retain
his common law remedies against his employer is deemed to have
waived only his "right of action at common law or under any statute
of
this State." [
Footnote
2/2] (Italics supplied.) Clearly this Texas statute did not
intend that a workman who elected to come under the compensation
act should thereby lose any rights created by the laws of other
states. That section of the Texas statutes relied upon by the Court
requires no different result. It provides that an employee injured
"outside of the State" cannot recover under the Texas act if "he
has elected to pursue his remedy and recovers in the state where
such injury occurred." [
Footnote
2/3] Plainly this latter statute pertains only to the right of
recovery under Texas law; it does not purport to affect rights
under the laws of other states. Nor does it proceed on any theory
of
res judicata, for if an employee fails to recover in
the other state, he can nevertheless recover an award in Texas.
And, in any event, the statute could not apply to the instant case,
for this employee's injury did not occur "outside" of Texas. The
dictum of the
Travelers Insurance Co. v. Cason, 132 Tex.
393, 396, 124 S.W.2d 321, referred
Page 320 U. S. 455
to by the Court, pertains to the rights of a Texas workman who
was injured in Pennsylvania.
In the absence of compelling language, this Court should not
construe the statutes of Texas in such a manner that grave
questions of their constitutionality are raised.
Cf. Yarborough
v. Yarborough, supra,
290 U. S. 213-214. It is extremely doubtful whether
Texas has the power, by any legal device, to preclude a sister
state from granting to its own residents employed within its own
borders that measure of compensation for occupational injuries
which it deems advisable.
"A State can legislate only with reference to its own
jurisdiction . . . , and the full faith and credit clause does not
require the enforcement of every right which has ripened into a
judgment of another state or has been conferred by its
statutes."
Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U. S. 629,
294 U. S. 642.
The practical result of the decision here is to hold that Texas has
power to nullify a Louisiana statute which gives the beneficial
protection of workmen's compensation to an injured workman who is a
resident of Louisiana and made his contract of employment there. I
"am not persuaded that the full faith and credit clause gives
sanction to such control by one state of the internal affairs of
another."
Yarborough v. Yarborough, supra, 290 U. S.
214.
II
It is apparently conceded that Louisiana would not have been
required to apply the Texas statute had there not been a judgment
in the particular case by the Texas tribunal. This freedom of the
state to apply its own policy in workmen's compensation cases
despite a conflicting statute in the state in which the accident
occurs rests on the theory that the state where the workman is
hired or is domiciled has a genuine and special interest in the
outcome of the litigation.
Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial
Accident Commission, 294 U. S. 532,
294 U. S.
541-543,
294 U. S. 549;
cf. 306 U. S. S.
456� Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission,
306 U. S. 493,
306 U. S. 503.
These cases mark recognition of the fact that the authority of the
states to act in any field is to be measured as much by vital state
interests as by technical legal concepts. Cf. Hoopeston
Canning Co. v. Cullen,@
318 U. S. 313. The
argument of state interest is hardly less compelling when Louisiana
chooses to reject as decisive of the issues of the case a foreign
judgment than when it rejects a foreign statute.
The interest of Texas in providing compensation for an injured
employee who, like respondent, was only temporarily employed in the
state is not the same as that of Louisiana, where the respondent
was domiciled and where the contract of employment was made.
Someone has to take care of an individual who has received, as has
respondent, an injury which permanently disables him from
performance of his work. If employers or the consumers of their
goods do not shoulder this responsibility, the general public of a
state must. Neither state merely vindicates a private wrong growing
out of tortious conduct.
McKane v. New Amsterdam Casualty
Co., 199 So. 175, 179;
Texas Employers Ins. Assn. v.
Price, 291 S.W. 287, 290. The Louisiana Act was passed in the
interest of the general welfare of the people of Louisiana.
Puchner v. Employers' Liability Corp., 198 La. 921, 922, 5
So. 2d 288. [
Footnote 2/4] If it
chooses to be more generous to injured workmen than Texas, no
Constitutional issue is presented.
Page 320 U. S. 457
The decision of the Court is not required by the
Schendel case. In that case, an employee brought an action
in a Minnesota court under the Federal Employers' Liability Act.
His employer brought an action in Iowa under the state law, the
result of which was a holding by the Iowa court that the action had
occurred in intrastate commerce. This court held in the
Schendel case, which was a review of the Minnesota
proceedings, that the decision of the Iowa court that the accident
occurred in intrastate commerce was
res judicata, and that
the employee could not attempt to show that the accident had in
fact occurred in interstate commerce, as would have been necessary
to bring the case within the coverage of the federal Act. The case
is wholly distinguishable, since the policy of the Federal
Employers' Liability Act has not been thought to require that a
federal award supplement a state workmen's compensation award. The
statutes involved were not conflicting, but were mutually
exclusive, the federal Act covering only injuries in interstate
commerce, U.S.C. Title 45, § 51
et seq.
Today's decision is flatly in conflict with accepted law and
practice. The Restatement of Conflict of Laws, § 403 states
categorically that an
"award already had under the Workmen's Compensation Act of
another state will not bar a proceeding under an applicable Act,
but the amount paid on a prior award in another state will be
credited on the second award,"
and one of the foremost studies of workmen's compensation states
the same rule. [
Footnote 2/5] Even
in the absence of an express statute, several state courts have
explicitly approved this practice.
Gilbert v. Des Lauriers
Column Mould Co., 180 App.Div. 59, 167 N.Y.S. 274;
Interstate Power Co. v. Industrial Commission, 203 Wis.
466, 234 N.W. 889;
see, similarly, McLaughlin's Case, 274
Mass. 217, 174 N.E. 338;
Migques' Case,
Page 320 U. S. 458
281 Mass. 373, 183 N.E. 847. Texas itself for a time applied a
similar ruling.
Texas Employers' Ins. Assn. v. Price, 300
S.W. 667.
North Carolina provides by statute in cases like the present
that the employee should be entitled to receive compensation
provided that, if he receives compensation from a state other than
North Carolina, he will be given no more compensation by North
Carolina than would raise the total recovery to the maximum allowed
by the North Carolina law. [
Footnote
2/6] Six other states have similar statutes. [
Footnote 2/7] The Committee on Workmen's
Compensation Legislation of the International Association of
Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions has drafted a uniform
state law on the subject which, were it applicable in the instant
case, would permit the employee to waive his rights under the
Louisiana law by bringing an action under the Texas law only by
filing a written waiver with a Louisiana Commission which would not
be binding until approved by such a Commission. [
Footnote 2/8] This proposed uniform state law would
presumably be unconstitutional under the decision announced today,
since it would leave in Louisiana the power to decide whether the
employee should receive additional
Page 320 U. S. 459
compensation despite the effect which Texas might seek to give
to its award.
Whether the theory is that Texas did not intend its judgment to
bar a proceeding in Louisiana or that the Texas workmen's
compensation law is so incompatible with the policy of Louisiana
that Louisiana is not bound by the Texas judgment, the result
should be the same: there should be no constitutional barrier
preventing a state in effect from increasing the workmen's
compensation award of another state in a case in which it has
jurisdiction over the participants and the social responsibility
for the results. Where two states both have a legitimate interest
in the outcome of workmen's compensation litigation, the question
of whether the second state which considers the case should abide
by the decision of the first is a question of policy which should
be decided by the state legislatures and courts. [
Footnote 2/9] Certainly fair argument can be made
for either disposition of the policy question. Texas itself decided
the question one way by decision in the
Price case, 300
S.W. 667,
supra, and, to a limited extent, the other way
by statute. [
Footnote 2/10] State
laws vary, and uniformity is not the highest value in the law of
workmen's compensation, a point well made by the Supreme Court of
Wisconsin when confronted with this very problem
Page 320 U. S. 460
in
Interstate Power Co. v. Industrial Commission,
supra, 477:
"This state adopted a very liberal act, and it is reasonably to
be inferred that the legislature was more concerned with making
certain that workmen within its jurisdiction should get all the
benefits of the act than it was with any conflicts or legal
difficulties which might arise out of lack of uniformity. Our plain
duty is to give to the act its intended effect, and to leave to the
Legislature the enactment of provisions designed to limit its
operation in the interest of uniformity."
Much has been made in the argument here of the alleged vice of
double recovery which is said to be allowed the respondent. Let me
emphasize that there is no double recovery. In the first place, the
Louisiana court has deducted from its judgment the amount of the
Texas payments. In the second place, the aggregate of the awards
from both states, if added together, would be far less than the
total loss suffered by respondent. The Texas allowance scarcely
amounts to a "recovery" in the sense of giving full compensation
for loss, and has been described by a Texas court to be "more in
the nature of a pension than a liability for breach of contract, or
damages intact."
Texas Employers Ins. Assn. v. Price, 300
S.W. 667,
supra, at 669.
See also Biddinger v.
Steininger-Taylor Co., 25 Ohio Dec. 603, 608.
The Court seems in some parts of its opinion to adopt a wholly
new and far-reaching policy relating to the power of states to
allow complete indemnification for a personal injury by permitting
more than one suit against the wrongdoer, and to engraft this
policy on to the full faith and credit clause. Courts schooled in
the common law have long objected to what has been designated
"splitting a cause of action." They have phrased this policy
objection in many common law concepts, one of which has been
Page 320 U. S. 461
the doctrine of "election of remedies." This predilection of
common law judges in favor of compelling the aggregation of all
possible elements of damage into one lawsuit is here apparently
elevated to a position of Constitutional impregnability in the full
faith and credit clause. The Court now seems to interpret that
clause to prohibit a recovery of full compensation for a personal
injury in more than one suit even if one or more states think full
compensation can best be accorded in this manner. The practical
result of this drastic new Constitutional doctrine is that State B
must give more faith and credit to State A's judgment for damages
for personal injury than State A itself intended the judgment
should be given. State A's and State B's judgments are said to be
mutually exclusive, not because either state made them so, but
apparently on the ground that the full faith and credit clause
imposes a rule of substantive law which requires this result. This
doctrine would accord to the full faith and credit clause a meaning
which it would have had if its authors had stated,
"Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the . . .
judicial Proceedings of every other State, and in addition two
recoveries shall never be allowed by separate states for losses
resulting from a single personal injury."
When the authors of the Constitution desired to prohibit two
criminal prosecutions for the same offense, they had no difficulty
in expressing their views. [
Footnote
2/11] Had they wished to hobble the states in their efforts to
provide more than one remedy in order to accomplish full justice in
civil cases, I think they could and would have expressed themselves
with equal clarity and emphasis.
Page 320 U. S. 462
III
The effect of the decision of this Court today is to strike down
as unconstitutional an important provision of the workmen's
compensation laws of at least eleven states. For more than half a
century, the power of the states to regulate their domestic
economic affairs has been narrowly restricted by judicial
interpretation of the federal Constitution. The chief weapon in the
arsenal of restriction, only recently falling into disrepute
because of overuse, is the due process clause. The full faith and
credit clause, used today to serve the same purposes, is no better
suited to control the freedom of the states. The practical question
now before us can be decided by the states in many ways, and most
of the states which have expressed themselves seem ready to dispose
of the problem as has Louisiana. Our notions of policy should not
permit the Constitution to become a barrier to free experimentation
by the states with the problems of workmen's compensation.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, MR. JUSTICE MURPHY, and MR. JUSTICE
RUTLEDGE concur in this opinion.
[
Footnote 2/1]
Cf. Anderson-Berney Realty Co. v. Soria, 123 Tex. 100,
67 S.W.2d 222. If petitioner had any defense to Hunt's suit under
Louisiana law, it was not the award but the implied contract.
See Middleton v. Texas Power & Light Co., 108 Tex. 96,
185 S.W. 556,
aff'd, 249 U. S. 249 U.S.
152. Petitioner, however, pleaded only the award for its
defense.
[
Footnote 2/2]
Texas Rev.Civ.Stat. Title 130, Art. 8306, § 3a. I do not agree
with the Court that Section 3 of this Article purports to compel an
employee to waive rights which arise under the laws of another
state. Such a construction would reduce the above quoted language
of Section 3a to deceptive verbiage.
[
Footnote 2/3]
Rev.Civ.Stat. Article 8306, § 19. Apparently only one other
state, Oregon, has a statute comparable to this.
See
Oregon Code, 1935, Supplement, § 49-1813a.
[
Footnote 2/4]
The classic theory of the interest of a state in workmen's
compensation was expressed by this Court in upholding the
constitutionality of a state compensation system: in the absence of
a workmen's compensation system,
"the injured workman is left to bear the greater part of
industrial accident loss, which, because of his limited income, he
is unable to sustain, so that he and those dependent upon him are
overcome by poverty and frequently become a burden upon public or
private charity."
New York Central R. Co. v. White, 243 U.
S. 188,
243 U. S.
197.
[
Footnote 2/5]
Dodd, Administration of Workmen's Compensation (1936) pp. 819,
820.
See also, to the same effect, 2 Beale, The Conflict
of Laws (1935) § 403.1.
[
Footnote 2/6]
N.C.Code (1939) § 8081(rr).
[
Footnote 2/7]
Florida: Florida Statutes 1941, § 440.09(1); Georgia: Georgia
Code 1933, § 114-411; Maryland: Maryland Annotated Code 1939,
Flack's Edition, Art. 101, § 80(3); Ohio: Page's Ohio General Code,
§ 1465-68; South Carolina: S.C.Code 1942, § 7035-39, and Virginia:
Virginia Code 1942, § 1887 (37). No less than thirty-four states
have enacted statutes which expressly permit recovery of workmen's
compensation under specified circumstances for injuries received in
another state. And the courts of nine additional states have
construed statutes which are not express to achieve the same
result.
See Schneider, Workmen's Compensation Law (1941)
Vol. 1, c. 5, pp. 441-568; Schneider, Workmen's Compensation
Statutes (1939), Vols. 1-4.
[
Footnote 2/8]
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 577 (1933) pp. 15,
16.
[
Footnote 2/9]
"The interest which New Hampshire has in exercising that
control, derived from the presence of employer and employee within
its borders and the commission of the tortious act there, is at
least as valid as that of Vermont, derived from the fact that the
status is that of its citizens and originated when they were in
Vermont, before going to New Hampshire. I can find nothing in the
history of the full faith and credit clause or the decisions under
it which lends support to the view that it compels any state to
subordinate its domestic policy, with respect to persons and their
acts within its borders, to the laws of any other."
Concurring opinion in
Bradford Electric Light Co., Inc. v.
Clapper, 286 U. S. 145,
286 U. S.
163-164.
[
Footnote 2/10]
Rev.Civ.Stat. Article 8306, § 19.
[
Footnote 2/11]
United States Constitution, Fifth Amendment. It has been held
that, consistent with the Fifth Amendment, the federal government
can impose criminal liability upon an individual for the same
conduct for which he has been tried and convicted under a state
criminal statute.
United States v. Lanza, 260 U.
S. 377.