p. 566The presiding judge thereupon directed the jury to return a verdict for defendants, and plaintiff then duly ex9epted to all said rulings and refusals to rule, directions, and doings of the presiding judge, .and said exceptions were duly allowed. The jury returned a-verdict for defendants, as directed by the presiding judge, as above stated. •
The statute of Massachusetts referred to in the defendants' plea, as in force at that time, is to be found in the General Statutes of the State, c. 84, § 2, and is as follows: “Whoever travels on the Lord’s day, except for necessity or charity, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding ten dollars.”
After the accident happened, and before the suit in the state court was brought, the legislature of Massachusetts enacted the following statute:
“ The provisions of § 2 of c. 84, Gen. St., prohibiting travel-ling on the Lord’s day, shall not constitute a defence to an action .against a common carrier of passengers for any tort or-injury suffered by a person so travelling.”
This last-named statute was held by the state court not to be retroactive, and not to affect this case.
Mr. A. A. Ranney for plaintiff in error.
.1. The court below erred in regarding this as a question of local law, in which the Federal court was concluded by the decision of the state courts.The court below followed the doctrine of law as held by the Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts, which this court will find stated in Stanton v. Metropolitan Railroad, 14 Allen, 485 , thus: “Being engaged in a violation of law, without Avhich he would not have received the injury sued for, the plaintiff cannot obtain redress in a court of justice.” He seems, however, to have gone further than this, and treated the ruling of the state court in Bucher v. Fitchburg Railroad Co., 131 Mass. 156 , — that the evidence reported. therein was not sufficient to warrant a verdict for the plaintiff, and that a new trial must be had before a jury, leave for which was gránted, — as a conclusive adjudication on the issue of fact presented again
p. 569contributing necessarily to the result, when it is not the natural or usual result' of .travelling on Sunday that damages should follow. It is a species of judicial outlawry; it ignores the analogies of the law and the principles of humanity; it impinges upon a well-settled rule,of general law, which the same court has itself recognized and enforced in other cases, to wit: Welch v. Wesson, 6 Gray, 505 ; White v. Lang, 128 Mass. 598 ; Steele v. Burkhardt, 104 Mass. 59 .The doctrine of the court of Massachusetts is generally regarded as strained, unwarranted, and unjust: Wallace v. Navigation Co., 134 Mass. 65 , 95; Commonwealth v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad, 80 Kentucky, 291; Platz v. Cohoes, 89 N. Y. 219 ; Baldwin v. Barney, 12 R. I. 392 ; Bayley v. New York &c. 3 Hill, (N. Y.), 531; Kerwhaker v. Railroad, 3 Ohio St. 172 ; S. C. 62 Am. Dec. 246 ; Opsahl v. Judd, 30 Minnesota, 126; Jacobus v. St. Paul &c. Railway, 20 Minnesota, 125; Wood v. Erie Railway, 72 N. Y. 196 .The mere fact that the plaintiff on the one hand, or the ^defendant on the other, was engaged in violating the law in a given particular at the time of the happening of the accident will not bar the right of action of the former, nor make the latter liable to pay damages, uñless such violation was an efficient cause of the injury.Ye insert copious extracts from the opinions of the court in some of the cases cited, showing that, this general rule of tort governs the case at bar.Mr. Justice Grier, in Philadelphia, Wilmington &c. Railroad v. Towboat Co., 23 How. at page 207, says: “ The law relating to the observance of Sunday defines a:duty of a citizen to the State, and to the State only. For a breach of that duty, he is liable to the fine or penalty imposed by the statute and nothing more. Courts of justice have no power to add to this penalty the loss of a ship by the tortious conduct of another, against whom the owner has committed’ no offence.”The court say, in Carrroll v. Staten Island Railroad Co., 58 N. Y. 126 : “ The defence is purely extraneous. . . . The negligence of the defendant was as wrongful on Sunday as on any other day, and was as likely to be followed by injurious or fatal
p. 570consequences! The plaintiff’s unlawful act did not in any sense contribute to the explosion- ... To hold the carrier exempt from liability because the plaintiff was violating the Sunday statute would, be creating a species of judicial outlawry, to shield a wrong-doer from a just responsibility for his wrongful act.” p. 136.Dixon, C. J., in Sutton v. Wauwatosa, 29 Wis. 21 , demonstrates that the violation of the law is ’an independent and disconnected act, and not a concurring or 'contributing cause within the rule of common law, and concludes: “ Connection, therefore, merely in point of time, between the unlawful act or fault of the plaintiff, and the wrong or omission of defendant, the same being in other respects disconnected and independent acts or events, does not suffice to establish contributory negligence,- or to defeat the action on that ground. As observed in Mohney v. Cook, such connection, if looked upon as in any sense' a cause, whether sacred and mysterious or otherwise, clearly falls under the rule — Causa próxima non remota spectator.” p. 29.In Baker v. Portland, 58 Maine, 199, the court say: “ The fact that a party plaintiff in an action of this description was at the time of the injury passing another wayfarer on the wrong side of the street, or without giving him half of the road, or that he was travelling on runners without bells, in contravention of the statute (see Moulton v. Sanford, 51 Maine, 134, by Appleton, C. J.), or that he was smoking a cigar in the streets, in. violation of a municipal ordinance, while it might subject 'the offender to a penalty, will not excuse the town for a neglect to make its ways safe and convenient for travellers, if the commission of the plaintiff’s offence did not in any degree contribute to produce the injury of which he complains.” p. 205.
In Schmid v. Humphrey, 48 Iowa, 652 , the court say: “ The fact that the plaintiff was at the place at the time he was injured did not directly contribute thereto. -A.s well might it be said, if he had never come to Iowa, or been born, he would not have been injured, and that, therefore, by reason of such facts, he contributed to the injury.” p. 654.In Johnson v. Irasburgh, 47 Vt. 28 , the court agree with
p. 571the doctrine of the cases cited above, to the extent that the unlawful' act of travelling on Sunday does not prevent a recovery because it was in any sense contributory negligence, or because it w;as simply an illegal act. They say: “Whether he is lawfully or unlawfully -there, when there, the same causes and forces produce the accident in one case as in the other; and the fact that the injured one is present unlawfully is not a factor which contributes to the happening of the accident.” p. 34.In Strickler v. Hough, 1 Pitts. (Penn.) 236, the court say: “The injury arose from 'the sole act of the defendant, an obstruction to 'the navigation unlawful at all times and seasons, and unmitigated by any fault in the plaintiff uniting in the production of the injury. Not that the plaintiff was without fault in his breach of the Sabbath, but that he was in none which united in the causation of the injury. It is true, if the plaintiff had not navigated the stream, the injury would not..have happened; but it happened, not because he navigated on Sunday,' but because he navigated afall. No logical consequence follows from the time of navigation to the injury happening. -As to the time, the injury is post hoc, non propter hoc. . . . Let Sunday navigation be right dr wrong, the time is not the cause of the injury ; and the plaintiff participates not in the cause, but the wrong is the same, whether it happened on one day-or another. This being the position of defendant toward the case, he cannot ask that not only the penalty of a violated statute, but that a forfeiture of a right of action not arising out of its breach, or dependent on its observance, shall be inflicted to give it efficacy. . . . It is impossible to perceive how a wrong-doer in one thing can protect himself against redress because his injury fell upon one who was a wrong-doer in another.” p. 242. The case there is analogous to the present one.If the law forbade -smoking or profane swearing on the cars, and a passenger was guilty oí' this, and while so doing was injured by the independent fault or wrong of the defendant, it might with equal propriety be urged in defence to an action for the tort of- the defendant, as is said by Dixon, C. J., in effect, in 29'Wis. 21: “The principle is that the violation
p. 572of Sunday law does not contribute to the result since it is not the natural or usual result of travelling’ on Sunday that damages should follow.”■ Bigelow on'Torts, 309. “ Wrongful acts or omissions cannot be set off against each other so as to make the yine an excuse for' the other, unless they stand respectively in .the situation of true causes to the damage.”It is a misnomer to call the offence against the law contributory negligence, or “a contributory cause,” unless the same operated as an efficient cause in the production of the injury. Two passengers, one travelling from necessity or charity, and the other not, sit side by^ side, and both using the same kind and degree of care: both are injured by defendant’s tortious act. How can it be justly said that there is contributory cause, or a want of due care, in one case more than the other ?The rule adopted in the Massachusetts cases, and followed blindly in one or two other of the New England States, closely impinges on the well-settled general rule of law as to the effect of collateral unlawful acts, and is condemned in 2_ Thompson on Negligence, 1093-4.This court condemned the doctrine of two of the leading cases in Massachusetts, such as Bosworth v. Swansey, 10 Met. 363 ; S. C. 43 Am. Dec. 441 ; Gregg v. Wyman, 4 Cush. 322 . The latter case was condemned in Woodman v. Hubbard, 25 N. H. 67 ; S. C. 7 Am. Dec. 320 ; and in Morton v. Gloster, 46 Maine, 520; and, .finally, the case was overruled in the same court in Hall v. Corcoran, 107 Mass. 251 .The Supreme Court of Connecticut, in Frost v. JPlumb, 40 Conn. Ill, has dealt with the doctrine also, pushing that of the overruling case still further. •The state court has, however, adhered uniformly to the old general doctrine, not heeding the case cited from this court in 23 How. 209 .When the people began to realize the fact, the general court came to the rescue and overruled the doctrine as held: first, as to torts of common carriers, in the law of 1877 cited; .then, generally, as to all parties, in the statute of 1884, c. 37. It is no longer the law of the State, thanks to the general court.
p. 574facts will make travelling an act of necessity or charity within the exception in the Lord’s Day Act, or when the plaintiff's own illegal conduct can be said to be a direct, rather than a remote, cause contributing to the injury. The first of these questions is to be determined, to a great extent, by considerations of moral fitness and propriety; the last by the evidence in each case bearing upon the complicated relations of cause and effect. In most cases, both questions should be submitted to the jury, with proper instructions.”So in Feital v. Middlesex Railroad, 109 Mass. 398 , the court say: “ The necessity of travelling, within the exception in the Lord’s Day Act, is, to a great extent, determined by its .moral fitness and propriety; and it would have been erroneous to have ruled, ,as matter of law, that travelling for such a purpose was nof within the exception.”The court, in construing the statute as matter of law, have defined the words “necessity” or “charity” to comprehend all acts which it is morally “fit and proper should be done on the Sabbath.”“The necessity intended by the statute is not to be limited, on the one hand, to absolute physical necessity, nor, on the other hand, is it to be so enlarged as to include mere business convenience or advantage.” Davis v. Somerville, 128 Mass.. 594 , 597. ' -The case in the state court, as I remember it, went to the full court on a report, so the court could determine certain exceptions, and whether the jury were justified on the case shown them in rendering the verdict. The court only held, in reviewing the facts, that the verdict was against the evidence, or without evidence, under the rules of law laid down.The court below has held the ruling-conclusive in this casé; just as though it Avas res adjudicóla, Avhen such it was not, not being so pleaded, and there being no final judgment which could properly so operate, if pleaded.A 'careful examination of that opinion shows that the court held adversely to the 'plaintiff, on the ground that he had made the aid to his sister a consideration subordinate to his secular business. I must confess that I fail to appreciate the
p. 575ground on which that idea is based. He did not arrange his secular business so as to necessitate travelling on Sunday, in Massachusetts, in violation of the statute. He planned so he would'arrive in Boston early Saturday evening. He did for his sister all that mercy and charity .required, in perfect consistency with an observance of the law. His necessity for travelling on Sunday for the rest of the route arose, not fi’om his plan, but from an unforeseen emergency. The theory of the court would seem to be that he should have dropped all business at once, and gone to his sister before the time required, and should not have waited till the proper time came for him to go. He, as the case now appears, after he had looked up the dates for the first' time, was to get the letter the very Saturday night in question. He had written her from Concord, N. H., some time from July 21 to 24, that he would be in Bos■ton, Saturday, the 5th of August, that being his post-office address ; .was not expecting the letter to arrive earlier than that. So long as he subserved his sister’s necessities in the matter of charity, he might also regard his business interests, provided he did not in plan and course of conduct contemplate travelling on Sunday. Had he arranged to start for Boston, and travel in Massachusetts, on Sunday, instead of Saturday, he would not have been justified.But this is not a case of thát kind. He did not arrange for, nor contemplate, -travelling on .Sunday over defendants’ road, or any other road. Had he, in violation of law, got to Boston when he expected, lie could have spent Sunday in Boston, and started for Chicago Monday morning. The Massachusetts court might, but probably would not, hold the opening, and reading of his sister’s letter on Sunday to have bfeen illegal, — he would have had time to do that Saturday night. The controlling element in this case, with the statfe court, -seems to have been that his sister’s letter arrived, or would have arrived, earlier, if his letter was written July 15, as was his erroneous impression in the trial of the state case, and which Avas corrected in the Circuit Court. But, for the life of me, I cannot see why the plaintiff AATas in fault, if he arranged to get to Boston as soon as the letter would, and that a Aveek-day named. '
p. 576Considerations connected with his sister, combined with the emergency; rendered it fit and proper for him to proceed as he did do. It is a strange doctrine, if held, that, when a passenger starts in season to reach Boston Saturday evening, and the train is delayed on the way, beyond the hour of midnight, he is bound to leave the train and stay over Sunday at the place where that hour finds him. lie may be at that time within a few miles of his own home, or, in these days of rapid transit, within a short ride, in point of time. This is manifestly an issue of fact for the jury, even under the local law.I have dealt with this last branch of the case, not knowing whether this court will hold to the Massachusetts decisions on the other point, or will adhere to what it has heretofore adjudged to be the true rule of general law.Mr. Charles A. Welch for defendant in error
cited : Bucher v. Fitchburg Railroad, 131 Mass. 156 ; Jones v. Andover, 10 Allen, 18 ; Stanton v. Metropolitan Railroad, 14 Allen, 485 ; Commonwealth v. Sampson, 97 Mass. 407 ; Commonwealth v. Josselyn, 97 Mass. 411 ; McGrath v. Merwin, 112 Mass. 467 ; Davis v. Somerville, 128 Mass. 594 ; Wallace v. Merrimack River Navigation Co., 134 Mass. 95 ; Day v. Highland Street Railway, 135 Mass. 113 ; Read v. Boston & Albany Railroad, 140 Mass. 199 ; Cronan v. Boston, 136 Mass. 384 ; Baker v. Worcester, 139 Mass. 74 ; Burgess v. Seligman, 107 U. S. 20 ; Sumner v. Hicks, 2 Black, 532 ; Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black, 599 ; Rowan v. Runnels, 5 How. 134 ; Ohio Life Ins. & Trust Co. v. Debolt, 16 How. 416 ; Pease v. Peck, 18 How. 595 ; Douglas v. Pike County, 101 U. S. 677 .delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a writ of error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.
The plaintiff in error was plaintiff in that court, and sought to recover of the defendants for injuries which he sustained by reason of their negligence while travelling upon their roads. •The court on the trial substantially instructed the jury that the
p. 577plaintiff could not recover because the injury complained of occurred while he was travelling upon the Sabbath day, in violation of the law of the State of Massachusetts.
A suit between the same parties in regard to the same transaction had been brought in the Supreme Court of that State, in which, on a trial before a jury, the plaintiff obtained a verdict. This was carried to the court in bank, and was there reversed and sent back for a new trial.- The plaintiff then became nonsuit in the state court and brought the present action in the Circuit Court of the United States.
It is important to inquire what was at issue upon the trial in the state court. There the defendant set up the law of the State found in the General Statutes, c. 84, § 2, which is as follows: “ Whoever travels on the Lord’s Day, except for necessity or charity, shall be punished- by a fine not exceeding ten dollars; ” and insisted that the plaintiff, being in the act of violating that law at the time the injury occurred, coul(l not recover. On the 15th of May, 1877, after the plaintiff was injured, the legislature of Massachusetts passed a statute declaring that this prohibition against travelling on the Lord’s Day should not' constitute a defence to an action against a common carrier of passengers for any tort or injury suffered by the person so travelling. Mass. Stat. 1877, c. 232.
The Supreme Court of that State had decided previous to this, in Stanton v. Metropolitan Railway Co., 14 Allen, 485 , a similar case, that the plaintiff, being engaged in a violation of law, without which he would not have received the injury sued for, could not obtain redress in a court of justice. Also in Bosworth v. Swansey, 10 Met. 363 , and in Jones v. Andover, 10 Allen, 18 . In the trial of the case now under cohsideration, before the jury in the state court, the plaintiff does not seem to have controverted the general doctrine thus declared, but insisted that the present case did not come within the statute, because, first, the act of May 15, 1877, had declared that travelling on Sunday should no longer be a defence to actions for injuries suffered by reason of the negligence of carriers of passengers, although this statute was passed after the accident occurred upon which the right of action was founded; and,
p. 578second, that' at the -time he. was injured he was, within the meaning of the statute, travelling upon an errand of charity or necessity, specially excepted from its provisions.
■ The court below sustained both of these propositions of the plaintiff, and the court in bank reversed 'the frial court upon both of them. It held 'that the act of May 15, 1877, did not govern a case where the inju-fy had occurred before its passage; that it was not retroactive, and also held that the facts set out in the bill of exceptions did not show that the plaintiff was travelling at the time of the accident either from necessity or for charity. It may be as well to state here that the facts found in the bill of exceptions relating to this latter qúestion, as it was presented before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, were identical- with those appearing in the bill of exceptions of the case now before us, being in both cases the plaintiff’s own statement of his reasons for- travelling on that day.
Upon the trial in the Circuit Court of the United States the judge was requested by the plaintiff to charge the jury that, the circumstances detailed in the testimony of plaintiff and found in the bill of exceptions concerning the illness of his sister in Minnesota, of which he had received knowledge by letter, and had replied that he -would meet her in Chicago at a certain time, and that,-having been delayed by accidental circumstances, the travel on Sunday, when he was injured, became necessary to enable him to fulfil that promise, were sufficient to be submitted to the jury in order that they might pass upon the question of whether orwt this act of travelling on the Lord’s Day was a work of necessity or charity. This the court declined to do, saying that the same question having been submitted to the jury in the trial in the state court, and having been passed upon by the Supreme Court of the State, he did not consider that there was evidence sufficient to go to the jury upon that subject.
This is one of- the assignments of error now before us, and upon this point we are of opinion that the. court below ruled correctly. It is not a matter of' estoppel which bound the parties in the court below, because there was no judgment entered in the case in which the ruling of the state court was
p. 579made, and we do not place tlie correctness of the determination of the Circuit Court in refusing to permit this question to go to the jury upon the ground that it was a point decided between.the parties, and therefore
res judicata, as between them in the present action, but upon the ground that the Supreme Court of the State in its decision had given such a construction to the meaning of the words “ charity ” and “ necessity ” in the statute, as to clearly show that the evidence offered' upon that subject was not sufficient to prove that the plaintiff was travelling for either of. those purposes. The court in its opinion, which is reported in
Bucher v.
Fitchburg Railroad, 131 Mass. 156 , said:
“ The act of plaintiff in thus travelling on the Lord’s Day was not an act of necessity within the meaning of the statute. .. . . In order to constitute an act of. charity, such as is exempted from the Lord’s Day act, the act which is done must be itself a charitable act. The act of ascertaining whether a charity is needful, is not the charity; but, so far as the statute is concerned, the only question in that case would be, is this act a necessary act ? That involves the question, whether the act is one which it is necessary to do on the Lord’s Day ,- and no previous neglect to obtain the requisite information on a previous day creates a necessity for obtaining it on the Lord’s Day.” p. 159.
After citing other cases which had been decided in that court, it was further said:
“It is apparent that the plaintiff’s duty to his sister was made subservient to his secular business. ¥e are, therefore, of opinion that the ruling should' have been given that there was no evidence which would justify the jury in finding that the plaintiff was travelling from necessity or charity, within the meaning of the statute.” p. 160.
Taking, therefore, this construction of the language of the statute, as well as prior decisions to the same purport in which Ave think we are bound to follow the Supreme Court of the State, Ave agree that the record in this case as in that does not furnish evidence which should have gone to the jury upon that branch of the subject. .
p. 580' The other assignment of error, in regard to the effect of travelling on the Lord’s Day in violation of the statute of Massachusetts, submitted as a defence to what would otherwise be a Lability, of the railroad for the negligence of its servants, presents the matter in a somewhat different aspect.
It is not easy to'see that there was anything in the case as it arose in the Circuit Court which required a construction of the meaning of that statute, after eliminating what has just been suggested as to the signification of the words “ necessity ” or “charity.” The remainder is a short prohibition against travelling upon the Lord’s Day, and provides for the imposition of a penalty for so doing. This is very plain ; it admits of no doubt as to its meaning, and its validity has never been controverted. When, therefore, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in a long line of decisions, has held that the violation of this statute may be set up as a defence to a liability growing out of the negligence of a railroad company in carrying passengers upon its road, it must have been on some other ground than that to be found in the expressions used in the statute itself. There is no such provision in it, and there is no necessary inference to be drawn from its language that it was intended to control the relations between the passenger and the carrier, or to modify the obligations of the one to the other.
■ The language of the court in Stanton v. Metropolitan Railway Co., already cited, is that “ because the plaintiff was engaged in the vviolation of law, without which he would not have received the injury sued for, he cannot obtain redress in a court of justice.” This principle would seem to be as appl-icable to a man engaged in any other transaction forbidden by law as to that of violating the Sabbath. ' Whether the doctrine thus'laid down is a sound one, apd whether, if it be not sound as it commends itself to our judgment, we should follow it 'as being supported by the decisions'. <?f the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in numerous instances, presents in this case the only serious question' for our consideration. Hamilton v. City of Boston, 14 Allen, 475 ; Bosworth v. Swansey, 10 Met. 363 ; Jones v. Andover, 10 Allen, 18 ; Day v. Highland Street
p. 581Railway Co., 135 Mass. 113 ;
Read v.
Boston & Albany Railroad Co., 140 Mass. 199 .
If the proposition, as established by the repeated decisions of the highest court of that State, were one which we ourselves believed to be a sound one, there would be no difficulty in agreeing with that court, and, consequently, affirming the ruling of the circuit judge in the present case. But without entering into the argument of that subject, we are bound to say that we do not feel satisfied, that, upon any general principles of law by which the courts that have adopted the common law system are governed, this is a true exposition of that law.
On the contrary, in the case of Phila., Wilmington & Balt. Railroad v. Steam Towboat Co., 23 How. 209 , this court had under consideration the same question. It arose in regard to the- effect of a statute of Maryland forbidding persons “ to work or do any bodily labor, or willingly suffer any of their servants to do any manner of labor on. the Lord’s Day, works of charity or necessity excepted,” and prescribing a penalty for a-breach thereof. It was held by this court , that where a vessel was prosecuting her voyage on Sunday, and was injured by piles negligently left in the river, this statute making travelling on Sunday an offence and punishing it by a penalty, constituted no defence to an action for damages by the vessel. A number of cases were cited sustaining that view of the subject, -and the court, through Mr. Justice drier, used this language : “We do not feel justified, therefore, on 'any principles of justice, equity, or of public policy, in inflicting an additional penalty of seven thousand dollars on the libellants, by way of set off, because their servants may have been subject to a penalty of twenty shillings each for the breach of the statute.” p. 218.
In that case, however, there had been no decision of the courts of Maryland, holding that á violation of the Sabbath would constitute a defence to the action against the company which had left the piles in the river. In this view of the matter it is not unworthy of consideration that, shortly after the injury in the present case was inflicted, the G-eneral Court of
p. 582Massachusetts passed a statute, to which we have already referred, declaring that’ travelling on the Lord’s Day should' not “ constitute a defence to an action against a common carrier of passengers for any tort or injury suffered by a person so travelling.”
The question then arises, how far is this court bound to follow the decisions of the Massachusetts Supreme Court on that subject ?
The Congress of the United States, in the act by which the Federal courts were organized, enacted that “the laws of the several States, except where the Constitution, treaties or statutes of the United States otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at common law, in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply.” Bev. Stat. § 721; Judiciary Act, 21- Sept., 1789, c. 20, § 31, 1 Stat". 92. This statute has been often the subject of construction in this court, and its opinions have not always been expressed in language that is entirely harmonious. What are the laws of the several States which are to be regarded “ as rules of decision in trials at common law ” is a subject which has not been ascertained., and,.defined with that uniformity and precision desirable in a matter of such great importance. ,
The language of the statute limits its application to cases of trials at common law. There is, therefore, nothing in the section which requires it to be applied to proceedings in equity, or in admiralty; nor is it applicable to criminal offences against the United States, (see United States v. Reid, 12 How. 361 ,) or where the Constitution, treaties or statutes of the United States require other rules of decision. But with these, and some other exceptions which will be referred to presently, it must be admitted that it does provide that the laws of the several States shall. be received in the courts of the' United States, in cases, where they apply, as the rules of decision in trials at common law.
It has been held by .this court that the’ decisions of the highest court of a State in regard to the validity or meaning of the constitution of that State, or its statutes, are to be considered as the law of that State, within the requirement of
p. 583this section. In
Leffingwell v.
Warren, 2 Black, 599 , this court said, in regard to the statutes of limitations of a State: “ The construction given to a statute of a State by the highest tribunal of such State is regarded as a part of the statute, and is as binding upon the courts of the United States as the text.”
In the case of Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1 , 40, Chief Justice Taney said: “ The point then raised here has been already decided by the courts of Bhode Island. The question relates altogether to the constitution and laws of that State; and the well-settled rule in this court is, that the- courts of the United States adopt and follow the decisions of the state courts in questions which concern merely the constitution and laws of the State.” See also Post v. Supervisors, 105 U. S. 667 .
It is also well settled that, where a course of decisions, whether founded upon statutes or not, have become rules of property as laid down by the highest courts of the State, by which is meant those rules governing the descent, transfer, or sale of property, and the rules which affect the title and possession thereto, they are-, to be treated as laws of that State by the Federal courts.
The principle also applies to the rules of evidence. In Ex parte Fisk, 113 U. S. 713 , 720, the court said: “ It has been often decided in this court that in actions at law in the courts of the United States the rules of evidence and the law of evidence generally of the State prevail in those courts.” See also Wilcox v. Hunt, 13 Pet. 378 ; Ryan v. Bindley, 1 Wall. 66 .
There are undoubtedly exceptions to the principle that the decisions of the state courts, as to what are the laws of that State, are in all cases binding upon the Federal courts.,. The case of Swift v. Tyson, 16 Pet. 1 , which has been often followed, established the principle that if this court took a different view of what the law was in certain classes of cases which ought to be governed by the general principles of commercial law, from the state court, it was not bound to follow the latter. There is, therefore, a large field of jurisprudence left in which the question of how far the decisions of state courts constitute the law of those States is an embarrassing one.
There is no common law of the United States, and yet the
p. 584main body of the rights of the people of this country rest upon and are governed by principles derived from the common law of England, and established as the laws of the different States. Each State of the Union may have its local usages, customs, and common law.
Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591 ;
Pensylvania v.
Wheeling Bridge Co., 13 How. 519 .
When, therefore, in an ordinary' trial in an action at law we speak of the common law we refer to the law of the State as it has been adopted by statute or recognized by the courts as the foundation of legal rights. It is in regard to decisions made by the state courts in reference to this law, and defining what is the law of the State as modified by the opinions of its own courts, by the statutes of the State, and the customs and habits of the people, that the trouble arises.
_Jt may be said generally that wherever the decisions of the state courts relate to some law of a local character, which may have become established by those courts, or has always been a part of the law of the State, that the deqisions upon the subject are usually conclusive, and always entitled to the highest respect of the Federal courts. The whole of this subject has recently been very ably reviewed in the case of Burgess v. Seligman, 107 U. S. 20 . Where such local law or custom has been established by repeated decisions of the highest courts of a State it becomes also the law governing the courts of the United States sitting in that State.
We are of opinion that the adjudications of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, holding that' a person engaged in travel on the Sabbath day, contrary to the statute of the S.tate, being thus in the act of violating a criminal law of the State, shall not recover against a corporation upon whose road he travels for the- negligence of its servants, thereby establish this principle as a local law of that State, declaring, as they do, the effect of its statute in its operation upon the obligation of the carrier of passengers. The decisions on this subject by the Massachusetts court are numerous enough and of sufficiently long standing to establish the rule, so far as they can establish it, and we think that, taken in connection with the relation which they bear to the statute itself, though giving an effect
p. 585to it which may not meet the approval of this court, they nevertheless determine the law-of Massachusetts on that subject.
Affirmed.
with whom concurred Mr. Justice Field, dissented upon the grounds:
1, That the question whether the provision in c. 84, § 2 of 'the General Statutes of Massachusetts that “ whoever travels on the Lord’s Day, except for necessity or charity, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding ten dollars” is a bar. to a recovery in this action, is a question of general law upon which the Federal courts are at liberty to follow their own convictions; and,
2, That it is settled by Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Balimore Railroad v. Philadelphia and Havre de Grace Towboat Co., 23 How. 209 , that such a state statute is not a bar to a recovery in an action like this in a Federal court.