Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/441

 Latest Important Cases Carriers.

See Public Service Corporations.

Contracts. See Employer's Liability. lmployer’l Liability. Employer not Exempted from Civil Liability by Contract u-hcreby Employee Accepts Voluntary Relief in Full Compensatiow-Public Policy. D. C. That voluntary relief granted under a contract releasing the employer from liability, to an employee injured while he was acting within the scope of his employment. does not bar an action for civil damages brought under the Employer's Liability Act of 1906, was held by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in McNamara v. Washington Terminal Co., decided May 10 (Washington Law Rep. June 3). The Court (Robb, I.) decided that a contract of employment entered into by a railroad company and an employee whereby the employee agreed that. in the event of the acceptance by him of the relief beneﬁts to which the contract referred, the company would be relieved of all liability on account of his injury, was within the terms of section 3 of the Employer's Liability Act of 1906, whereby it is provided that “no contract of employment,. . . relief beneﬁt, . . . northe acceptance of any such insurance, relief beneﬁt,. . shall constitute any bar or defense to an action brought to recover damages for personal injuries to or death of such employee," etc., but giving the carrier the right to set oﬁ in such action any sum it may have contributed toward such insur ance, relief beneﬁt, etc. The Court upheld the foregoing provisions of the statute as not an unjustiﬁable encroach ment by the law-making power upon the right of free contract guaranteed in general terms by the Fifth Amendment1-— "We must have in mind that the object of this law, and of laws of similar character. is not alone to protect and beneﬁt employees of common carriers, but to promote the public welfare. johnson v. Southern Paciﬁc Co., 196 U. S. 17, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 158; Mr.

Justice Moody in the Employer's Liability

cases, 207 U. S. 533, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 141. The safety of the traveling public is dependent, to a large extent, upon the safety of employees engaged in the operation of railroads. The interests of employees and passengers, in so

far as the safety of either is involved, are, of necessity, mutual. In section 1 of the act the carrier is declared to be responsible to employees for injuries sustained through its negligence or the negligence of fellow-servants. If the imposition of such responsibility upon the carrier inured to the beneﬁt of the public as well as to the employee, and we think it did, Congress had the right to take that into consideration in enacting section 3." lmtdiﬂon. See interstate Rendition. Interstate Commerce. See Railway Rates. Interstate Rendition. Petition for Habeas Corpus Dismissed—Circumstantial Evidence of Physical Presence within Demanding State. N. Y. Frank N. Hoffstot, residing and doing business in New York City, and in the habit of going to Pittsburgh on business once a month, was detained under a warrant issued by the Governor of New York directing his surrender to the Pennsylvania authorities as a fugitive from justice. He petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied by the United States Circuit Court. (Matter of Hoﬁstot, N. Y. Law Jour. May 24.) The Court (Holt, J.) reviewing all the evidence, held that there was circumstantial evidence which brought the case within the following rule: "Under the constitutional provision, and the statute passed in conformity with it, providing for the extradition of fugitives from justice from one state to another, it is necessary that the defendant should have been physically present in the state in which it is alleged that the crime was committed, at the time when it was committed, in order to make him, on his subsequent departure from the state, a fugitive from justice (Hyatt v. Corkran,

188 U. s. 691, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 456)." Application for Extradition Denied—-Physi cal Presence under Conditions Pointing to Non- Participation in Criminal Act. N. J. Similar points were considered in Blotter of j. Ogden Armour, which grew out of the application of the Prosecutor of Hudson County, New Jersey, to the Governor of that state for the rendition of Mr. Armour as a fugitive from justice. Armour & Co. had