Pope v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company/Opinion of the Court

Invoking the Federal Employers' Liability Act, petitioner sued his employer, an interstate railroad company, for injuries sustained during the course of his employment, allegedly through respondent's negligence. The injury occurred in Ben Hill County, Georgia, which was the place of petitioner's employment as well as the place of his residence. But petitioner filed his complaint in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama; jurisdiction and venue were grounded on § 6 of the Act.

Respondent then initiated a suit in equity in the Superior Court of Ben Hill County and asked that petitioner be restrained from prosecuting his action in Alabama. Respondent's petition to the Ben Hill County Court contained allegations that petitioner had deliberately sought to 'harass' his employer by subjecting it to the burden and expense of defending the claim in a distant forum, far from the scene of the accident and the residences of the witnesses.

The trial court sustained a general demurrer to this petition. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed-holding that Georgia law provided Georgia courts with the power to enjoin Georgia residents from bringing vexatious suits in foreign jurisdictions. Petitioner's claim that § 6 of the Federal Employers' Liability Act prohibited such an injunction in this case was overruled. 209 Ga. 187, 71 S.E.2d 243. We granted certiorari, 344 U.S. 863, 73 S.Ct. 107, for the decision had interpreted an important federal statute, and the interpretation was asserted to be in conflict with decisions of this Court in Miles v. Illinois Central R. Co., 1942, 315 U.S. 698, 62 S.Ct. 827, 86 L.Ed. 1129, and Baltimore & O.R. Co. v. Kepner, 1941, 314 U.S. 44, 62 S.Ct. 6, 86 L.Ed. 28.

In our grant of certiorari, we also directed counsel to brief and argue the question of whether the judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court was 'final.' The statute which vests us with jurisdiction to review the decisions of state courts provides that the judgment must come from the 'highest court of a State in which a decision could be had,' and it must be 'final.' 28 U.S.C. § 1257, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1257. The case at bar clearly met the first requirement, but we were in doubt as to whether it satisfied the second.

Congress has limited our power to review judgments from state courts lest the Court's jurisdiction be exercised in piecemeal proceedings to render advisory opinions. Were our reviewing power not limited to 'final' judgments, litigants would be free to come here and seek a decision on federal questions which, after later proceedings, might subsequently prove to be unnecessary and irrelevant to a complete disposition of the litigation. Ordinarily, then, the overruling of a demurrer, like the issuance of a temporary injunction, is not a 'final' judgment.

Yet we are not bound to determine the presence or absence of finality from a mere examination of the 'face of the judgment.' We have not interpreted § 1257 so as to preclude review of federal questions which are in fact ripe for adjudication when tested against the policy of § 1257.

The finality problem arises in this case because the judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court did not, on its face, end the litigation. Both parties agree that Georgia procedure would permit petitioner to return to the Superior Court of Ben Hill County and interpose some other defense to respondent's suit for an injunction. But petitioner has no other defense to interpose. He has been both explicit and free with his concession that his case rests upon his federal claim and nothing more. If the court below decided that claim correctly, then nothing remains to be done but the mechanical entry of judgment by the trial court. Thus, as the case comes to us, the federal question is the controlling question; 'there is nothing more to be decided.' Under these particular circumstances, we have jurisdiction over the cause, Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board of Equalization, 1946, 329 U.S. 69, 67 S.Ct. 156, 91 L.Ed. 80, and we reach the merits of petitioner's contention that the Georgia Supreme Court has failed to give proper effect to the venue provisions of the Federal Employers' Liability Act.

Section 6 of that Act establishes petitioner's right to sue in Alabama. It provides that the employee may bring his suit wherever the carrier 'shall be doing business', and admittedly respondent does business in Jefferson County, Alabama. Congress has deliberately chosen to give petitioner a transitory cause of action; and we have held before, in a case indistinguishable from this one, that § 6 displaces the traditional 'power of a state court to enjoin its citizens, on the ground of oppressiveness * *  * from suing *  *  * in the *  *  * courts of another state *  *  * .' Miles v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, 315 U.S. at page 699, 62 S.Ct. at page 828. Respondent admits that the Miles case dealt with precisely the issue before us, but respondent tells us that Miles is now no longer the law because Congress overruled it, by implication, with the passage of § 1404(a) of the Judicial Code in 1948. Section 1404(a) provides:

'For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the     interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil      action to any other district or division where it might have      been brought.'

We have heretofore held that § 1404(a) makes the doctrine of forum non conveniens applicable to Federal Employers' Liability Act cases brought in federal courts and provides for the transfer of such actions to a more convenience forum. Ex parte Collett, 1949, 337 U.S. 55, 69 S.Ct. 944, 959, 93 L.Ed. 1207. Respondent would have us extend that decision, to hold that s 1404(a) also provides for the power asserted by the Georgia court in this case. We do not agree; we do not think the language of the statute suggests any such implied grant of broad power to the state courts.

Section 1404(a), by its very terms, speaks to federal courts; it addresses itself only to that federal forum in which a lawsuit has been initiated; its function is to vest such a federal forum with the power to transfer a transitory cause of action to a more convenient federal court. It does not speak to state courts, and it says nothing concerning the power of some court other than the forum where a lawsuit is initiated to enjoin the litigant from further prosecuting a transitory cause of action in some other jurisdiction. Nor does § 1404(a) contemplate the collateral attack on venue now urged by respondent; it contains no suggestion that the venue question may be raised and settled by the initiation of a second lawsuit in a court in a foreign jurisdiction; its limited purpose is to authorize, under certain circumstances, the transfer of a civil action from one federal forum to another federal forum in which the action 'might have been brought.'

Although the statutory language of § 1404(a) contains no authorization for the power asserted in this case, respondent directs our attention to remarks in the Reviser's Note to that provision of the Code. The Reviser's Notes were before Congress when it considered enactment of the various provisions of the 1948 Judicial Code and Congress relied upon them to explain the significance and scope of each section.

Basing its argument upon the text of the Reviser's Note to § 1404(a), respondent argues that it must have been the intent of Congress, if not its expressed purpose, that § 1404(a) be construed as respondent would construe it.

The Reviser's Note to § 1404(a) recites that this Court's decision in Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, supra, furnished 'an example of the need' for enactment of § 1404(a). In the Kepner case, we held that a state court was not free to exercise its equity jurisdiction to enjoin a resident of the state from prosecuting a Federal Employers' Liability Act suit in a distant federal court. We reasoned that Congress had purposely given the employee a right to establish venue in the federal court where he had sued, and, what Congress had so expressly given, the courts should not take away.

The reference to the Kepner case in the Reviser's Note in nowise conflicts with what we think is the plain meaning of the language of § 1404(a) itself. The Kepner case was simply cited as an apt example of an inequitable situation which could be cured by providing the federal courts with the power to transfer an action on grounds of forum non conveniens. The full text of the Reviser's Note makes it clear that it was the power of the federal court to transfer, and not the power of the state court to enjoin, which was the remedy envisioned for any injustice wronght by § 6 in the Kepner case.

Thus, with the exception of the transfer powers conferred upon the federal courts by § 1404(a), Congress deliberately chose to leave this Court's decision in the Kepner case intact. Indeed, we have said as much before:

'Section 6 of the Liability Act defines the proper forum; §     1404(a) of the Code deals with the right to transfer an      action properly brought. The two sections deal with two     separate and distinct problems. Section 1404(a) does not     limit or otherwise modify any right granted in § 6 of the      Liability Act or elsewhere to bring suit in a particular      district. * *  * ' Ex parte Collett, supra, 337 U.S. at page      60, 69 S.Ct. at page 947.

Congress might have gone further; it might have vested state courts with the power asserted here. In fact, the same Congress which enacted § 1404(a) refused to enact a bill which would have amended § 6 of the Federal Employers' Liability Act by limiting the employee's choice of venue to the place of his injury or to the place of his residence.

This proposed amendment-the Jennings Bill -focused Congress' attention on the decisions of this Court in both the Miles and the Kepner cases. The broad question-involving many policy considerations-of whether venue should be more narrowly restricted, was reopened; cogent arguments-both pro and con-were restated. Proponents of the amendment asserted that, as a result of the Miles and Kepner decisions, injured employees were left free to abuse their venue rights under § 6 and 'harass' their employers in distant forums without restriction. They insisted that these abuses be curtailed. These arguments prevailed in the House which passed the Jennings Bill, but the proposed amendment died in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and § 6 of the Federal Employers' Liability Act was left just as this Court had construed it.

Since the narrow question in this case is simply whether the Miles case is still controlling; since we find no legislation which has devitalized it in any way, and since we find affirmative evidence that Congress chose to let it stand, the judgment below must be reversed.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice BLACK agrees that the Georgia Supreme Court's judgment was 'final' and concurs in reversing that judgment for the reasons given in this Court's opinion.