Johnson v. Southern Pac. Co.

Citations

• 117 F. 462
• 54 C.C.A. 508
• 1902 U.S. App. LEXIS 4455

Syllabus

<p>1. Automatic Couplers—Act of March 2,1893, does not Require Locomotives to be Equipped with.</p> <p>The act of March 2, 1893 (27 Stat. c. 196, p. 531), does not make it unlawful for common carriers to use locomotives engaged in interstate commerce which are not equipped with automatic couplers.</p> <p>2. Construction of Statutes—Act Changing Common Law Strictly Construed.</p> <p>A statute changing the common law modifies or abrogates it no farther than the clear import of its language necessarily requires.</p> <p>3. Same—Penal Statute Strictly Construed.</p> <p>A penal statute may not be so broadened by construction as to make it cover, and authorize the punishment of, otherwise lawful acts, which are not denounced by the usual meaning of its express terms.</p> <p>A Same—Enumeration of Subjects Excludes Others.</p> <p>. A statute which enumerates the parties, things, or acts which it denounces thereby impliedly excludes all others from its effect.</p> <p>5. Same—When not Permissible.</p> <p>When the language of a statute is unambiguous, and its meaning is plain, it must be held to mean, and the legislative body must be held to have intended, what it plainly expresses, and no room is left for construction.</p> <p>6. Injury to Servant—Negligence—Assumption of Risk.</p> <p>A servant assumes the ordinary risks and dangers of the employment upon which he enters, so far as they are known to him, and so far as they would have been known to one of his experience, age, and capacity by the use of ordinary care.</p> <p>7. Same—Assumption of Risk of Coupling Cars with Different Couplers.</p> <p>A brakeman of ordinary intelligence and experience assumes the risks and dangers of coupling cars provided with different kinds of well-known couplers, bumpers, and deadwoods, because these are the ordinary risks and dangers of his service.</p> <p>8. Same—Automatic Couplers—Act of March 2, 1893—Equipment of Car</p> <p>with One Kind of Coupler Sufficient.</p> <p>The equipment, under th