Beutler v. Grand Trunk Junction Railway Co.

Citations

• 224 U.S. 85
• 32 S. Ct. 402
• 56 L. Ed. 679
• 1912 U.S. LEXIS 2281

Syllabus

<p>Courts may not abolish an established rule of law upon personal notions. of what is expedient; and so as to the fellow-servant doctrine even if it be, as it has been called, a bad exception to a bad rule.</p> <p>In cases tried in the United States courts the court must follow its understanding of the common law when no settled rule of property intervenes.</p> <p>The fellow-servant rule applies where the character of their respective occupations brings the people engaged in them into necessary and frequent contact even if they have no personal relations.</p> <p>An employé of a railroad company engaged in work in the repair yard is a fellow-servant of the crew of a switching engine of the same company engaged in running cars needing repairs into the yard.</p> <p>Although the question of fellow-servant may be left to the jury in the state court, the question whether the facts do or do not constitute a ground of liability is one of law; this court accordingly answers a question certified by the Circuit Court of Appeals as to whether employés in this case were fellow-servants.</p> <p>If a law is bad, the legislature, and not juries, must change it.</p>