· 3/1/1916

New York Central Railroad Company v. White

Citations

243 U.S. 188
37 S. Ct. 247
61 L. Ed. 667
1917 U.S. LEXIS 2105

Syllabus

Employment in guarding tools and materials intended for use in the construction of a new railroad station and new tracks which when finished will be used in interstate 'commerce, has no such direct relation to interstate transportation as will afford basis for applying the Federal Employers’ Liability Act in case of accident and death. Pedersen v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R. R. Co., 229 U. S. 146, 152. He who assails a statute as unconstitutional must show that his right is infringed by it; where, however, a statute so regulates the correlative rights of two classes — as employers and employees — that if void as to one it must be void as to the other, complaint of a party belonging to one class may require an examination of the statute in both aspects. The New York Workmen’s Compensation Law, Laws 1913, c. 816; Laws 1914, chaps. 41, 316, provides an exclusive system to govern the liabilities of employers and the rights of employees, and their dependents, in respect of compensation for disabling injuries and death caused by accident (not due to the willful intent or the intoxication of the employee) in certain employments, classed as hazardous; the duty of employers to compensate is made absolute; the compensation which employers must pay and employees (or their dependents, in death cases,) must accept in satisfaction, is measured by a prescribed scale, based on loss of earning power, gauged by the previous wage, and the nature and duration of the disability or, in case of death, the dependency of the beneficiaries; the amounts fixed are apparently moderate and reasonable and the means of collection, through administrative proceedings subject to judicial review of law questions, are apparently economical, expeditious and fair; employers are required to. furnish security against future liabilities; and the act is prospective. Held: (1) That neither (a) in rendering the employer liable irrespective of the doctrines of negligence, contribut

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

concluding that the exclusion of farm laborers from New York workers’ compensation scheme did not violate the federal equal protection guarantee
concluding that the 53 exclusion of farm laborers from New York workers’ compensation scheme did not 54 violate the federal equal protection guarantee
noting the possibility of criticism \on the ground that the compensation prescribed by the statute in question is unreasonable in amount\
expressing uncertainty as to whether “a state might, without violence to the constitutional guaranty of due process of law,’ suddenly set aside all common-law rules respecting liability as between employer and employee, without providing a reasonably just substitute”
expressing uncertainty as to whether “a state might, without violence to the constitutional guaranty of ‘due process Fields filed his suit. See id. at 949; see also Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 30.020(1) (statute of limitations), 12.110(4) (statute of repose
“[T]he state in the exercise of its police power may impose absolute liability upon the employer [for worker injuries] regardless of the existence of actionable negligence.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Pitney

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