Southern Pac. Co. v. Indus. Accident Comm'n

The Industrial Accident Commission made an award in favor of the dependents of William T. Butler, who was killed while working as an electric lineman in the employ of petitioner, Southern Pacific Company. Said company operates a system of electric railway lines in Alameda County, its cars being used in both intrastate and interstate commerce. For the generation of electric power the company maintains at Fruitvale a main power-house, whence an alternating current of high voltage is transmitted through a main power line to substations. At the substations the current passes through converters and transformers, which convert it to a direct current and reduce its voltage. The direct current, thus reduced, passes to the trolley wires, and from them to the motors on the cars.

When Butler sustained the fatal injury, which was caused by an electric shock, he was engaged in wiping insulators on the main power line between the Fruitvale power-house and the substations.

Upon the question whether a given employment falls within the scope of the federal act we must look to the decisions of the courts of the United States as of controlling force. In Shanks v. Delaware, L. & W. R. R. Co., 239 U. S. 556 , [L. R. A. 1916C, 797, 60 L. Ed. 436 , 36 Sup. Ct. Rep. 188 ], the court said: “The true test of employment in such commerce in the sense intended is, Was the employee at the time of the injury engaged in interstate transportation or in work so closely related to it as to be practically a part of it?” The commission was, no doubt, seeking to apply this test, and we take it that the word “preliminary,” though perhaps not an altogether appropriate term, was used by it in its finding to express the idea that the work in which Butler was engaged was not so closely related to interstate transportation as to be a part of it.

The opinion in the Shanks ease refers to a number of earlier cases in which, upon varying facts, the federal statute had been held to be applicable or inapplicable. Upon examination of these decisions, it will be found that each case turned upon the peculiar facts of the employment in question. It may be said, however, that the decisive- consideration is always the closeness or remoteness of the particular work, as related to interstate transportation. In this court it has been held that a mechanic engaged in repairing a switch-engine which was used in the transportation of commerce, interstate and intrastate, was engaged in interstate commerce within the meaning of the act (Southern Pac. Co. v. Pillsbury, 170 Cal. 782 , [L. R.

In Chicago, B. & Q. R. R. Co. v. Harrington, 241 U. S. 177 , [ 60 L. Ed. 941 , 36 Sup. Ct. Rep. 517 , 11 N. C. C. A. 992], the supreme court of the United States had occasion to consider a state of facts more closely analogous to the situation here presented. The injured employee was a member of a switching crew which was engaged in switching ears of coal belonging to the railroad company. The coal was being switched to a shed, where it was to be placed in bins and chutes, and supplied as needed to locomotives engaged in interstate as well as intrastate transportation. It was held that the Federal Employers’ Liability Act was not applicable. Applying the test laid down in the Shanks case, the court said that “manifestly there was no such close or direct relation to interstate transportation in the taking of the coal to the coal-chutes. This was nothing more than the putting of the coal supply in a convenient place from which it could be taken as required for use. ’ ’ The reasoning is apt here. The coal was essential to the production of motive power for the locomotives, just as] in this case, the electric current was necessary to move petitioner’s"cars. But in moving the coal to the shed, Harrington was engaged in a work which was at least one step removed from the actual furnishing of the coal to the engines, and this precluded that close relation of his work to interstate commerce which would bring him within the scope of the federal act. So, in this case, Butler was working on the part of the line between the. main power-house and a substation. The current was still to pass through the transformers and converters, and be so converted and reduced as to be suitable for use in propelling the cars. The test of remoteness seems as applicable in the one case as in the other. It is true, as petitioner claims, that the electric current, once it is generated at the main power-house, passes along the main power line, to and through the converters and transformers in the substations, and to the trolley wires, without interruption, and without storage. No doubt, too, a break in that current at any point, however remote from the lines of track, would

We think, therefore, that the commission was justified in exercising jurisdiction.

The award is affirmed.

Victor E. Shaw, J., pro tern., Richards, J., pro tem., and Angellotti, C. J., concurred.

I dissent.

The test is stated by the supreme court of the United States to be, “Was the employee at the time of the injury engaged in interstate transportation, or in work so closely related to it as to be practically a part of it ? ” The deceased was engaged in working upon an insulator that supported a wire that was actually in use in moving trains engaged in interstate commerce, and was killed by a fall resulting from a shock caused by an escape of some of the electric current so used. His

The electricity in question was generated at a steam-generating plánt at Fruitvale. That steam plant was just as truly operating the moving cars as though the steam had been generated in a locomotive attached to.the train. The electric transmission line was merely a means of conducting that power to the train, and in no sense differs in legal contemplation from the system of transmission of power by cable to the cars of a cable railroad. It is merely a means to an end; an instrumentality for moving interstate commerce; a method of applying the potential energy of coal and fuel oil to the movement of a train. The instant the potential energy was converted into kinetic energy it became the proximate cause of train movement, and the instrumentalities used in applying it to the interstate commerce is as much a part of the system of transportation as the car in which the passenger or freight rides. The intimate connection with the actual movement of trains is shown by the fact that the instant the power plant ceases to operate, or the transmission wire breaks, the car upon the railroad track, whether it be ten miles or five hundred miles away, immediately stops. The fact that in transmitting this power it passes through what is known as transforming stations has no significance whatever. It must be conceded that distance is not a factor in the determination of the question whether or not a person is engaged in interstate commerce. For instance, no one would doubt that if a train-dispatcher on Eiffel Tower, Paris, operated trains on an interstate railroad in California from there, he would be engaged in interstate commerce. The question of the method of the transmission of his orders would likewise be immaterial. He might use wireless across the Atlantic Ocean, a telegraph wire from New York to San Francisco, and a telephone from San Francisco to the station agent, who writes the message and hands it to the conductor. It would make no difference if the message was originally written and transmitted in French and was afterward translated into English. It is' obvious that the true question is, “Were the messages that were sent by the train-dispatcher obeyed by the train crews in operating their trains?” So the question here is, “Was the power passing along the power line the proximate cause of

Melvin, J., concurred.

Rehearing denied.