233 U.S.

Opinion of the Court.

Mr. George Demming for plaintiff in error.

Mr. William Clarke Mason, with whom Mr. Charles Heebner was on the brief, for defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE Van Devanter delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an action against a railway company to recover for personal injuries. The right of action was predicated upon the Federal Employers' Liability Act of April 22, 1908, c. 149, 35 Stat. 65, as amended April 5, 1910, c. 143, 36 Stat. 291, and it was alleged that the injuries were sustained while the defendant was engaged, and while the plaintiff was employed by it, in interstate commerce. There was a plea of not guilty, and a trial resulted in a judgment of compulsory non-suit. The case is here upon a direct writ of error based upon a certificate that the court's decision was given upon a jurisdictional ground, namely, that "the evidence produced at the said trial of the case did not disclose that plaintiff, at the time of the happening of the accident by which he received the injuries complained of, was engaged in interstate commerce."

Although counsel have presented the case as if it were properly here, it is manifest that it is not. The clause in § 238 of the Judicial Code providing for a direct writ of error "in any case in which the jurisdiction of the court is in issue" refers, as we have repeatedly held, to cases in which the power of the court, as a Federal court, to hear and determine the cause is in controversy. Fore River Shipbuilding Co. v. Hagg, 219 U. S. 175, 178; United States v. Congress Construction Co., 222 U. S. 199; Darnell v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 225 U. S. 243. No such issue is here disclosed. The power of the court, as a Federal court, to hear and determine the case was not questioned. Nor did the court hold that it was without jurisdiction VOL. CCXXXIII-23

in that sense. On the contrary, it proceeded to a hearing and decided that the plaintiff could not recover under the Federal act, because one element of his asserted cause of action was without any evidence to sustain it. Had the action been brought in a state court, as it could have been, the same question would have arisen, and had the evidence been similarly insufficient a like decision must have ensued. We say the action could have been brought in a state court, because § 6 of the Federal act declares: "The jurisdiction of the courts of the United States under this act shall be concurrent with that of the courts of the several States, and no case arising under this act and brought in any state court of competent jurisdiction shall be removed to any court of the United States." And we say the result must have been the same in a state court upon similar evidence, because the right of recovery given by the act (§ 1) is restricted to injuries suffered while the employé is employed in interstate commerce.

It follows that there was no basis for the direct writ of error. If a review of the decision was desired it should have been sought in the Circuit Court of Appeals.

Writ of error dismissed.

TENNESSEE COAL, IRON & RAILROAD COMPANY v. GEORGE.

ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF

GEORGIA.

No. 299. Argued March 17, 1914.-Decided April 13, 1914.

While the courts of a State are bound to give full faith and credit to all substantial provisions of a statute of another State creating a transitory cause of action which inhere in the cause of action or which name conditions on which the right to sue depends, venue is no part of a right, and whether jurisdiction exists is to be determined by

233 U.S.

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

the law of the State creating the court in which the case is tried. A State cannot create a transitory cause of action and at the same time destroy the right to sue thereon in any court having jurisdiction although in another State.

The jurisdiction of a court over a transitory cause of action cannot be defeated by the extraterritorial operation of a statute of another State even though the latter created the cause of action.

The statute of Alabama making the master liable to the employé for defective machinery created a transitory cause of action which can be sued on in another State having jurisdiction of the parties, notwithstanding the statute provides that all actions must be brought thereunder in the courts of Alabama and not elsewhere.

A state court does not deny full faith and credit to a statute of another State by taking jurisdiction of a transitory cause of action created thereby, although such statute provides that the action can only be brought in the courts of the enacting State. Atchison &c. Ry. v. Sowers, 213 U. S. 55.

11 Ga. App. 221, affirmed.

THE facts, which involve the validity of a judgment of the courts of the State of Georgia and the determination of whether those courts gave full faith and credit to a statute of the State of Alabama affecting the cause of action, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Alexander W. Smith for plaintiff in error:

The mandate of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution of the United States is not obeyed in the courts of a State when it recognizes the public acts of a sister State, creating a right of action nonexistent at the common law, and refuses compliance with the provision of the same statutes restricting the enforcement of that right to the courts of competent jurisdiction in the State creating it. A., T. & S. F. Ry. v. Sowers, 213 U. S. 55; El Paso &c. Ry. v. Gutierrez, 215 U. S. 87.

The condition, or limitation, put upon a right of action created by statute, and not existing at common law, inheres in the right itself and follows it into other jurisdictions. Galveston &c. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 223 U. S. 481, 490;

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

233 U. S.

The Harrisburg, 119 U. S. 199; Davis v. Mills, 194 U. S. 451, 454; Munos v. So. Pac. Co., 51 Fed. Rep. 188; Stern v. LaCompagnie &c., 110 Fed. Rep. 996 (2); The Edna (Ala. statute), 185 Fed. Rep. 206; United States v. Boomer, 183 Fed. Rep. 726; Coyne v. So. Pac. Co., 155 Fed. Rep. 683. Where the statute creating the right provides an exclusive remedy, to be enforced in a particular way, or before a special tribunal, the aggrieved party will be left to the remedy given by the statute which created the right.

Such a condition, or limitation, need not be contained in the same statute. It operates the same way if it be specially attached to such a statutory right of action subsequently and in a different statute. Davis v. Mills, 194 U. S. 451, 454.

The courts of the United States take judicial notice of the public laws of each State of the Union. Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 651, 657.

Where a limitation to local courts is affixed to a cause of action existing at the common law, and independently of the statute affixing it, the limitation may be disregarded as in the Sowers Case, supra. A well defined distinction exists between cases based on common law liability and those depending on statutory rules of liability. Charleston &c. Ry. Co. v. Miller, 113 Georgia, 15; Chicago &c. Ry. Co. v. Ross, 112 U. S. 377, 382; Missouri &c. Ry. Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205; B. & O. R. R. v. Baugh, 149 U. S. 368, 378, 379; Missouri Pac. Ry. v. Castle, 224 U. S. 541; Employers' Liability Cases, 207 U. S. 463, 537; Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 49; Mobile Ry. Co. v. Holburn, 84 Alabama, 133; S. C., 4 So. Rep. 146.

"Interstate venue,' or venue as between different countries, is jurisdictional. "Municipal venue," or venue as between different places in the same jurisdiction, as a rule has to do with procedure merely. Ellenwood v. Marietta Chair Co., 158 U. S. 105, 108; British So. Africa Co. v. Companhia &c., 2 Q. B. 358.

233 U.S.

Counsel for Defendant in Error.

There is a distinction between the existence of jurisdiction in a given court and its proper exercise in a given case therein. Smith v. McKay, 161 U. S. 355, 358; Louisville Trust Co. v. Knott, 191 U. S. 225, 233; United States v. Larkin, 208 U. S. 333, 338; Fore River &c. v. Hagg, 219 U. S. 175; Van Fleet's Collateral Attack, Chap. IV.

Dennick v. R. R. Co., 103 U. S. 11, 18; Texas &c. Ry. Co. v. Cox, 145 U. S. 593; Stewart v. B. & O. R. R., 168 U. S. 445; Whitman v. Oxford National Bank, 176 U. S. 559, can be distinguished, as in not one of these cases was the right of action restricted or limited by the law which created it, and that restriction disregarded.

The principle involved is closely analogous to that found in the decisions relative to the enforcement of "death statutes" enacted in one State and invoked in another. All restrictions and limitations therein found are enforced everywhere. Slater v. Mex. Nat. R. R., 194 U. S. 120, 126; Chambers v. B. & O. R. R., 207 U. S. 142.

So, also, it is analogous to the application of statutes of limitations of the lex loci in the forum. Davis v. Mills, 194 U. S. 451, 457; Selma &c. v. Lacey, 49 Georgia, 106.

So, also, it is analogous to the question of statutory venue of suits under the act of Congress authorizing actions on contractors' bonds in Government work. Davidson &c. Co. v. Gibson, 213 U. S. 10, 16; United States v. Boomer (8 C. C. A.), 183 Fed. Rep. 726; United States v. Congress Construction Co., 222 U. S. 199; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Sowers, 213 U. S. 55.

Inasmuch as the statutes of Alabama, here under consideration, confessedly create a new and statutory cause of action, expressly abrogating common law principles otherwise applicable, the Sowers Case, supra, does not support the judgment.

Mr. Reuben R. Arnold for defendant in error.