Today in Supreme Court History: January 3, 1911

1/3/1911: Justice Willis Van Devanter takes oath.

Justice Willis Van Devanter

Comments

[Frank Drackman]

In 1896 Van Devanter represented the state of Wyoming before the U.S. Supreme Court in Ward v. Race Horse 163 U.S. 504 (1896).
I gotta read that case...

Frank "Watch you talkin' bout Willis?"

[Syd Henderson]

“Did you in fact engage in the conduct of which the prosecution accuses you?”

“Neigh.”

[Dilan Esper]

IIRC it's a pretty important Indian law case that has been discussed extensively in some of the more recent cases on that subject area.

[Bored Lawyer]

I see you jockeyed this post really well.

[Dan Schiavetta]

United States v. Gaskin, 320 U.S. 527 (decided January 3, 1944): “Peonage” (abducting someone in debt to you and forcing him to work for you until the debt is paid off) is a Thirteenth Amendment violation and was outlawed in 1867. Here, where the defendant had “arrested” one James Johnson and transported him to another place within Florida, the Court construes what it concedes is confusing language in the peonage statute, and holds that one can be guilty even if the “arrested” person doesn’t perform any actual work (one guesses that Johnson escaped after being transported).

Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U.S. 219 (decided January 3, 1911): Another case related to the abolition of peonage. Here, the Court invalidates on Thirteenth Amendment grounds an Alabama statute that creates a presumption of fraud (a criminal offense) regardless of the mental state of the accused or any mitigating factors if someone makes off with an advance payment for work and neither returns it nor does the work.

Coray v. Southern Pacific Co., 335 U.S. 520 (decided January 3, 1949): man pumping one-man flatcar was not contributorily negligent for failing to see where he was going before hitting train where train itself stopped unexpectedly due to Federal Safety Appliance Act violation (defect in brake line which caused brakes to lock) (this argument would not fly in a rear-end auto case)

[apedad]

The Coray decision irks me in that the "cause" of the accident was that Coray simply wasn't paying attention.

"(Coray's) motorcar was equipped with brakes which had they been applied could have stopped the car within a distance of about one hundred feet. But the decedent who was in control of the car did not apply the brakes. Apparently he and another employee with him were looking backward toward a block signal
and therefore did not know the train had stopped."

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep335/usrep335520/usrep335520.pdf

[Dan Schiavetta]

Seems odd to me too.

[Dilan Esper]

Distracted train driving is a really big problem. It caused the deadly Metrolink crash in the San Fernando Valley in 2008.

[Dr. Ed 2]

" The statute declares that railroads shall be responsible for their employees' deaths "resulting in whole or in part" from defective appliances such as were here maintained. 45 U.S.C. § 51. And, to make its purpose crystal clear, Congress has also provided that "no such employee . . . shall be held to have been guilty of contributory negligence in any case" where a violation of the Safety Appliance Act, such as the one here, "contributed to the . . . death of such employee." 45 U.S.C. § 53. Congress has thus, for its own reasons, imposed extraordinary safety obligations upon railroads, and has commanded that, if a breach of these obligations contributes in part to an employee's death, the railroad must pay damages. These air-brakes were defective; for this reason alone, the train suddenly and unexpectedly stopped..."

[John F. Carr]

In the railroad case federal law said that contributory negligence was not available as a defense if a violation of the Safety Appliance Act contributed to the accident.

Because it is long dead where I live, contributory negligence strikes me as an unpredictable rule. I don't know how it interacts with rear-end collisions. I can say that a rear-ender does not create a presumption of fault in a tort action in Massachusetts under precedent from the contributory negligence era. The rear driver is presumed at fault in an insurance claim, and most accidents are covered by insurance.

[Dr. Ed 2]

As you may or may not know, if a trailer truck loses air pressure to the trailer, all eight tires on the trailer lock up — the air pressure defeats a spring which engages the brakes in an emergency. (Anti-lock brakes would also cycle on and off, and this is why you sometimes see broken lines of skid marks pulling to the side of the road — someone lost an air line.)

The reason for this is if the trailer breaks loose from the truck, it will automatically stop. And it would show no brake lights — no lights at all as the wiring is also no longer connected to the truck.

So a 30 ton trailer's broken loose and has stopped dead in a travel lane...

Isn’t this pretty much what happened to the train? And a driver IS at fault if he loses his trailer (with litigation then possibly shifting to mechanics, etc.).

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks. I'm always glad when my comment prompts someone to read the case cited.

[SMP0328]

Holmes's dissent is par for the course. Throughout his time on the Court, he cared little for individual rights (e.g., Buck v. Bell (1927)). Slavery under a different name and forcibly sterilizing a woman were just fine with this guy.

[Syd Henderson]

If I remember, we saw this case a while back when it was argued. The problem with Holmes' argument is that the law does indeed involve peonage and that was outlawed, as captcrisis mentions, by the Peonage Act of 1867 which Congress could do by the 13th Amendment. section 2. I think the first time it was used was against New Mexico's peonage law. I can imagine states using peonage laws to return slaves into slavery under another name.