Baltimore & Ohio Railroad v. Kepner

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We have for decision in this case the question whether a state court may validly exercise its equitable jurisdiction to enjoin a resident of the state from prosecuting a cause of action arising under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act in a federal court of another state where that Act gave venue, on the ground that the prosecution in the federal court is inequitable, vexatious and harassing to the carrier.

As the issue was deemed a federal question of substance,1 undecided by this Court, and concerning which there was lack of uniformity in the state court decisions,2 certiorari was granted, 312 U. S. 671, the decree below affirmed here by an equally divided court, 313 U. S. 542, and the petition for rehearing allowed, 313 U. S. 597.

This proceeding originally was brought by the petitioner, an interstate railroad, in the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton County, Ohio, against the respondent Kepner, an injured resident employee, to enjoin his continued prosecution of a suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act for his injuries. The accident, according to the petition, occurred in Butler County, Ohio, a county adjacent to that of respondent’s residence, through both of which counties petitioner’s railroad ran. The petition further showed that suitable courts, state and federal, were constantly open and that petitioner and the witnesses were available for process therein. It was stated the federal court chosen was seven hundred miles from the residence of the respondent and numerous witnesses; that to present the case properly required the personal attendance of approximately twenty-five locally available witnesses — the crew, inspectors and the medical attendants — at a cost estimated to exceed the cost of the presentation of the case at a convenient point by $4,000, with no resulting benefit to the injured employee. Petitioner asserted these facts established that the continued prosecution of the federal court action would be an undue burden on interstate commerce and an unreasonable, improper and inequitable burden upon petitioner itself.

The defendant railroad was doing business in the New York district where the damage suit was filed, as appears from a copy of the complaint in the federal case made a part of the petition.

Respondent demurred for failure to state a cause of action and lack of jurisdiction of the subject of the action: The trial court sustained the démurrer and dismissed the action, by an order which was sustained by the Court of Appeals and, on rehearing, by the Supreme Court of Ohio.3 The basis for the decision below was that the respondent employee was privileged to enjoy, without interference from a state court, the venue allowed by the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.4

The statutory provision in regard to venue is in § 6, which so far as pertinent reads as follows:

“Under this chapter an action may be brought in a district court of the United States, in the district of the residence of the defendant, or in which the cause of action arose, or in which the defendant shall be doing business at the time of commencing such action.” (Apr. 5, 1910, c. 143, § 1, 36 Stat. 291, as amended March 3, 1911, c. 231, § 291, 36 Stat. 1167; 45 U. S. C. § 56.

When the second Employers’ Liability Act was enacted, venue of actions under it was left to the general venue statute, 35 Stat. 65, which fixed the venue of suits in the United States courts, based in whole or in part upon the Act, in districts of which the defendant was an inhabitant.5 Litigation promptly disclosed what Congress considered deficiencies in such a limitation of the right of railroad employees to bring personal injury actions,6 with the result that the present language was added.77

The reason for the addition was said to be the injustice to an injured employee of compelling him to go to the possibly far distant place of habitation of the defendant carrier, with consequent increased expense for the transportation and maintenance of witnesses, lawyers and parties, away from their homes.8 The legislative history throws little light on the reason for the choice of the three standards for determining venue: the residence of the carrier, the place where it is doing business, or the place where the cause of action arose. At one time, the amenda-tory bill fixed venue as “the district of the residence of either the plaintiff or the defendant, or in which the cause of action arose, or in which the defendant shall be found at the time of commencing such action.” 9 Fears were expressed that so wide a choice might result in injustice to the carrier, p. 2257. No doubt this language was actually considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as the language of the general venue statute for which the Committee was providing an exception. Specific attention was called in the Senate report to the Macon Grocery case, interpreting the general venue statute. That statute placed venue in the residence of either party, where the jurisdiction was founded on diversity of citizenship alone. The language finally adopted must have been deliberately chosen to enable the plaintiff, in the words of Senator Borah, who submitted the report on the bill, “to find the corporation at any point or place or State where it is actually carrying on business, and there lodge his action, if he chooses to do so.”10

When petitioner sought an injunction in the Ohio court against the further prosecution of the federal court action in New York, the petition alleged that prosecution of the New York action would entail “an undue burden” on interstate commerce. No objection to the decree below, upon that explicit ground, appears in the petition for certiorari, either in the specification of errors or reasons for granting the writ. In petitioner’s brief on the merits, it is pointed out that this Court held in Denver & R. G. W. R. Co. v. Terte, 284 U. S. 284, that the disadvantages of litigation far from the scene of the accident are not substantial enough to justify a state court in forbidding the continuation of the litigation in a district where the lines of the carrier run. This accords with Hoffman v. Missouri ex rel. Foraker, 274 U. S. 21, where it was said the carrier must “submit, if there is jurisdiction, to the requirements of orderly, effective administration of justice, although thereby interstate commerce is incidentally burdened.” 11 Since the carrier’s exhibit of respondent’s New York petition shows an allegation that it is doing business in New York, we assume that business to be such as is contemplated by the venue provisions of § 6. There is therefore no occasion to consider further the suggestion that the suit in New York creates an inadmissible burden upon interstate commerce.

The real contention of petitioner is that, despite the admitted venue, respondent is acting in a vexatious and inequitable manner in maintaining the federal court suit in a distant jurisdiction when a convenient and suitable forum is at respondent’s doorstep. Under such circumstances, petitioner asserts power, abstractly speaking, in the Ohio court to prevent a resident under its jurisdiction from doing inequity. Such power does exist.12 In the Matzinger case, the Supreme Court of Ohio exercised this power to prevent the continuation of a personal injury suit in Illinois, by a resident under its jurisdiction, on an Ohio cause of action. Such power has occasionally been exercised by one state over its citizens, seeking to enforce in other states remedies under the Employers’ Liability Act, against defendants locally available for the litigation.13 At times the injunction has been refused.14

We read the opinion of the Supreme Court of Ohio to express the view that, if it were not for § 6 of the Employers’ Liability Act, the requested injunction would be granted, on the undisputed facts of the petition. Section 6 establishes venue for an action in the federal courts. As such venue is a privilege created by federal statute15 and claimed by respondent, the Supreme Court of Ohio felt constrained by the Supremacy Clause to treat § 6 as decisive of the issue. It is clear that the allowance or denial of this federal privilege is a matter of federal law, not a matter of state law under Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, 72.16 Its correct decision depends upon a construction of a federal act.17 Consequently, the action of a state court must be in accord with the federal statute and the federal rule as to its application, rather than state statute, rule or policy.1818

Petitioner presses upon us the argument that the action of Congress gave an injured railway employee the privilege of extended venue, subject to the usual powers of the state to enjoin what in the judgment of the state courts would be considered an improper use of that privilege. This results, says petitioner, because the Act does not in terms exclude this state power.19 As courts of equity admittedly possessed this power before the enactment of § 6, the argument continues, it is not to be lightly inferred that the venue privilege was in disregard of this policy. But the federal courts have felt they could not interfere with suits in far federal districts where the inequity alleged was based only on inconvenience.20 There is no occasion to distinguish between the power and the propriety of its exercise in this instance, since the limits of the two are here co-extensive. The privilege was granted because the general venue provisions worked injustices to employees. It is obvious that no state statute could vary the venue;21 and, we think, equally true that no state court may interfere with the privilege, for the benefit of the carrier or the national transportation system, on the ground of inequity based on cost, inconvenience or harassment. When the section was enacted it filled the entire field of venue in federal courts.22 A privilege of venue, granted by the legislative body which created this right of action, cannot be frustrated for reasons of convenience or expense. If it is deemed unjust, the remedy is legislative — a course followed in securing the amendment of April 5, 1910, for the benefit of employees. This Court held in Hoffman v. Missouri ex rel. Foraker, 274 U. S. 21, that the burden on interstate commerce would be disregarded where the carrier had lines in the distant state. The importance of unhampered commerce is at least as great as that of a carrier’s freedom from harassing incidents of litigation. Whatever burden there is here upon the railroad, because of inconvenience or cost, does not outweigh the plain grant of privilege for suit in New York.23

Affirmed.