Supreme Court of the United States, 1918

Nelson v. Southern Railway Co.

Supreme Court of the United States · Decided March 4, 1918 · Brandeis

246 U.S. 253; 38 S. Ct. 233; 62 L. Ed. 699; 1918 U.S. LEXIS 1540 (United States Reports)

Counsel

Mr. A. L. Brooks, with whom Mr. O. L. Sapp, Mr. S. Clay Williams, Mr. R. C. Kelly and Mr. C. L. Shaping were on the brief, for plaintiff in error., Mr. Garland S. Ferguson, Jr., with whom Mr. H. O’B. Cooper, Mr. L. E. Jeffries, Mr. Clement Manly and Mr. John .N. Wilson were on the brief, for defendant in error.

Cases that cite this one

19 later published cases cite this decision.

Fleming v. Husted (8th Cir. 1947)
Chicago Great Western Ry. Co. v. Peeler (8th Cir. 1944)
McClain v. Charleston & W. C. Ry. Co. (S.C. 1939)
Virginian Ry. Co. v. Staton (4th Cir. 1936)
Southern Ry. Co. v. Crawley (Ala. 1934)
Jacobson v. CHICAGO, M., ST. P. & PR CO. (8th Cir. 1933)
Elswood v. Oregon Short Line R. Co. (Utah 1933)
Ferguson v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. (Supreme Court of the United States 1957)
O'Brien v. Minnesota Western Railroad Co. (Minn. 1929)
Southern Railway Co. v. Chadwick (Va. 1926)
Ebell v. Oregon-Washington R. & N. Co. (Or. 1924)
Bennett v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. (Iowa 1921)
Berry v. Director General of Railroads (Wis. 1921)
Labonte v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (Mass. 1956)
Southern Railway Co. v. Turner (Ga. Ct. App. 1953)
Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad v. Koske (Supreme Court of the United States 1929)
Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Aeby (Supreme Court of the United States 1928)
Pursglove v. Monongahela Ry. (Pa. 1925)
Jackson v. Hanrahan (Iowa 1924)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion

Mr. Justice Brandeis

delivered the opinion of the court.

Nelson, a civil engineer who had been in the employ of the Southern Railway eleven years, was directed to make a survey in one of its yards. While doing so he walked on the main track between the rails where he had seen others walk. As he stepped upon a cross-tie, a small V-shaped piece of it one and a half inches by six, being rotten, slivered off under his weight. His foot slipped down between the ties where the ballast was five or six inches below the top of .the tie; and stumbling, he fell and dislocated his knee. The defect in the tie could have been discovered by sounding with an iron rod and the standard of maintenance of roadbed prescribed by the Railway was to ballast to the top of the ties. But neither the condition of the tie, nor the failure to ballast to the top of the tie, was a defect of a character to impair safety in operation. Plaintiff knew that there were always some ties on the line which were partly decayed, and also that the ballast was occasionally below the top óf the ties.

Upon these facts Nelson sought in a state court of North Carolina to recover damages from the Railway *255 under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. The trial court refused defendant’s motion for a non-suit; and the jury rendered a verdict for plaintiff. Judgment thereon was reversed by the Supreme Court of the State (170 N. Car. 170) on the ground that there was no evidence of negligence; and the case came here on writ of error.

It is clear that the defendant did not fail in any duty which it owed to the plaintiff.

Judgment affirmed.

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