that we will resist attacks on the legitimate perogatives of labor as well as those upon the rights of farmers.

Centuries ago, Anglo-American courts recognized that the public interest requires that a very high degree of responsibility be assumed by public carriers. A farmer or other individual who ships his goods has no control over the operation of the carrier and is dependent for the safety of his goods upon the integrity and efficiency of the carrier. His person and even his life are entrusted to the keeping of the carrier when he travels by railroad; yet he has no control or influence over the manner in which the carrier is operated. It was doubtless such considerations as these and others growing out of them which impelled the courts to hold that the carrier is insurer, and later impelled courts and legislatures to impose upon carriers a very high degree of liability for personal injuries.

But these legal doctrines are futile if they cannot be enforced by legal action. It would be of little avail for a court to hold that a carrier is an insurer of freight and then make it impossible for the shipper to sue the railroad. When a farmer ships goods by rail, he is not only entitled to regard the carrier as liable for injuries in transit due to the carriers' negligence, but he is also entitled to enforce that liability in the courts. And the right to sue for personal injuries is a frail right indeed if it is thwarted by difficult rules of venue and exorbitant costs of litigation. If farmers, even more than other citizens, are to be secure in their right to require of carriers a high degree of care, then they must have the correlative right to sue the carrier for negligence in convenient jurisdictions and at costs which are not entirely beyond the farmers' means; for farmers are more isolated than other citizens, and jurisdictional obstacles and litigious expenses bear more heavily upon them.

Most common carriers, and particularly railroads, are powerful and wealthy corporations represented by extremely skillful and agile lawyers. They can be depended upon, and rightly so, to exhaust every advantage given them in the courts. If a litigant may only sue a railroad in a jurisdiction which is convenient to the railroad, then he is not apt to receive equal justice under law.

In the last century, Congress, the state legislatures, and the courts were continuously pressed to make it possible for poor men to get justice from the railroads. Railroads then had and exercised power of economic life and death over businessmen, firms, and indeed whole communities. Their excesses led to the regulatory legislation now on the statute books. From this condition flowed Federal and State regulation of railroads, freight and passenger rates, safety requirements, and, eventually, to the clear and easy venue provisions which make it possible now for any aggrieved person to sue the railroad wherever he may find it. To alter these laws now is to return to ruthless exploitation of the public by the railroad.

The nature of business of a common carrier makes ordinary venue provisions impractical and almost useless. Accidents to freight and persons do not arrange conveniently to occur at places assuring easy access to the courts. A citizen injured by the negligence of the railroad, either in his person or in his goods, in almost every case will find that neither the place of injury nor his own residence is a convenient place to sue. The place the injury occurs will probably be

remote from experienced counsel and courts; and his residence will be remote from witnesses and evidence. The railroads are rich and powerful. They have access to first-rate counsel wherever they can be found. The notion that a railroad may suffer from ruthless litigants who take undue advantage of the company is silly.

This legislation would upset a law which has been in existence since 1910 and was originally enacted as a result of many decades of experience. As I understand it, a principal reason urged in favor of the passage of the proposed amendment is that it is designed to prevent so-called ambulance chasing. But the ambulance chaser would not be an ambulance chaser if he had respect for law. Laws can no more prevent ambulance chasing than they can prevent murder. There are now ample means of punishing these practitioners of the shoddy who fatten upon suffering, and their punishment is and ought to be the function of local bar associations and courts. We question seriously whether any action by Congress can be as effective as the disciplinary programs of the local courts and bar associations.

But even if we assume that this law would put an end to ambulance chasing, still the end would certainly not justify the means. To discipline members of the bar is not sufficient reason for denying practical access to the courts to millions of citizens subject to injury by the negligence of railroad companies.

This amendment of the present law was conceived in injustice and has now grown greater in injustice. As originally drafted and considered, it appears to have been intended to deprive railroad employees of rights now vested in them and other citizens. Another corporation, or a stockholder, or a shipper, may sue the railroad company where he finds it. It was not unjust in 1910 to extend this same right to employees of the railroad companies. It was manifestly unjust to deprive employees of this right, as the original Jennings bill provided, while preserving the same right in others. When it developed that such manifest discrimination would probably defeat the measure, an attempt was made, now embodied in the pending bill, to remove the objections to its discriminatory character by extending discrimination to other groups. Under the existing law, a shipper of goods and an employee or a passenger injured by the negligence of the railroad company may sue the company where he finds it. The original amendment deprived the employee of that right but preserved the right in the shipper and the passenger. The present legislation would further deprive the passenger, but would leave with the shipper the same right. This is a strange discrimination against men in favor of goods. As was pointed out to the House committee, if this amendment became law and I then shipped cattle by rail and accompanied the cattle, in the event of negligence on the part of the carrier resulting in injury to me and my cattle, I could sue in behalf of my cattle wherever I could find the company, but I could only sue in my own behalf at the place the injury occurred or at my residence. I would have a larger right with respect to my cattle than with respect to my own person.

That standard of values appeals to farmers no more than to workers-a standard not only repugnant to our sense of justice but to our whole conception of the American way of life.

In behalf of the National Farmers Union, I strongly urge that H. R. 1639 not be reported by this committee, or that it be reported with a recommendation against its passage.

Senator MOORE. Thank you very much.

That closes the hearings except for the filing of statements which may continue up to the 20th.

(Thereupon, at 10: 55 a. m., the hearing was closed.)

APPENDIX

The committee files contain scores of letters, testimonials, and resolutions from attorneys, law firms and bar associations (National, State, and local) recommending passage of H. R. 1639 and S. 1567. Similarly, numerous correspondence and resolutions have been received from labor groups in opposition to the legislation. In the interest of conservation of space and printing costs the above material is not included in the printed hearings. It does, however, remain as part of the public records of the files of the committee open to the scrutiny of interested parties.

MEMORANDUM BRIEF SUBMITTED BY HARRY SEE, ON BEHALF OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN, BEFORE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE OF UNITED STATES SENATE, IN OPPOSITION TO H. R. 1639 AND S. 1567, JANUARY 19, 1948

I. THE RAILROAD WORKER IS ENTITLED TO THE BENEFITS OF WISE AND HUMANE LEGISLATION

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the special and peculiar position of the railroad worker with reference to industrial accidents has long been recognized by courts and legislatures both National and State. The executive branch of the Government, as well as various agencies and boards thereof, have made his problems the object of specialized study. Various state governments have enacted legislation conferring special benefits on railroad workers who are killed or injured during the course of their employment as the result of the negligence of the employers.

As early as 1889 President Harrison presented this problem to Congress and called attention to the absence of any adequate remedy. He stated that the railroad worker in the course of his employment is subjected "to a peril of life and limb as great as that of a soldier in time of war." (See Messages and Papers of the President, vol. 12, p. 5486.) Likewise President McKinley and President Theodore Roosevelt addressed similar appeals to the Congress, the latter sending a special message in which he indicated that the employer could adopt a system of insurance against such injuries and stating that, "the loss which can readily be borne when distributed but which if undistributed, bears with frightful hardship upon the unfortunate victim of the accident." (See Messages and Papers of the President, vol. 15, p. 7127.)

In advocating the passage of the Federal Employers' Liability Act, Senator Borah stated that the venue provisions," * * * enabled the plaintiff 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" (Congressional Record, 61st Cong., 2d edition, pt. 4, p. 4034).

The latest expression of congressional concern consists of a resolution of the United States Senate adopted in July 1941 directing the Railroad Retirement Board to make an immediate, thorough, and complete investigation of the incidence of injuries and diseases incurred by employees through employment in the railroad industry and the social and economic consequences of such injuries and diseases and report to the Senate Committe on Interstate Commerce. Pursuant to this resolution an investigation was conducted over a period of several years, and no effort was spared to make it thorough and complete. In May of 1947 the report of the Railroad Retirement Board was forwarded to the Honorable Wallace H. White, Jr., chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. This report consisted of two large volumes and contained the results of years of investigation, research, and study by various experts. We will have occasion to refer later to some of the contents of this report.

Originally the Federal Employers' Liability Act was enacted over the bitter opposition of the carriers and their lobbyists who were strongly opposed to any civilized, humane, and liberal system of compensation for railroad employees. Their opposition eventually came to an end on January 15, 1912, when after various messages from the President of the United States, and after one previous decision invalidating the first legislation in this field, the Supreme Court of the United States finally sustained the Federal Employers' Liability Act in the case of Edgar G. Mondou v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. (223 U. S. 1; 32 S. Ct. 169), generally known as the Second Employers' Liability Act case. The original act was soon liberalized by an amendment with respect to the jurisdiction of courts and the venue of actions brought under it, and the liberal provision was adopted for the express purpose of giving the employee a wide choice, as indicated by Senator Borah, who sponsored and advocated it. It has been enforced for 37 years. A rather definite body of law has crystallized around it and there is no demand or request for its alteration or repeal, except from the railroad companies and their attorneys who originally opposed not only the venue provisions but the entire act itself. The support of various bar associations has been inspired and enlisted on the theory that the proposed amendment would make for a wider distribution of law, business.

In a perfectly overwhelming series of decision (from St. Louis I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Taylor, 210 U. S. 281, 28 S. Ct. 616; to Lilly v. Grand Trunk Western R. Co., 317 U. S. 481, 63 S. Ct. 347) the courts have recognized that the Federal Employers' Liability Act, supplemented or implemented by the Safety Appliance Acts, forms a body of wise, humane, and humanitarian legislation. Again and again the courts have held that it should be construed liberally in favor of the employee to effectuate its humanitarian purpose. Uniformly the courts have rejected the argument of hardship advanced by the carriers. For example, in the Taylor case, supra, where the railroad company contended that the Safety Appliance Act imposed a great hardship upon it the Supreme Court of the United States said:

"But this argument is a dangerous one, and never should be heeded where the hardship would be occasional and exceptional. It would be better, it was once said by Lord Eldon, to look hardship in the face rather than break down the rules of law. But when applied to the case at bar the argument of hardship is plausible only when the attention is directed to the material interest of the employer to the exclusion of the interests of the employee and the public."

As further evidence of the intention of Congress to accord special and liberal treatment to railroad workers was the restriction in the venue provisions against removal from State to Federal court. The Federal courts have acquired the reputation of being more conservative than State courts. Among members of the bar generally were many lawyers who were fearful of Federal judges and Federal juries and who were disinclined to bring their lawsuits before them. In recognition of this fear. and as further evidence of the liberality of Congress, it was provided that no case arising under the act and brought in any State court of competent jurisdiction should be removed to any court of the United States.

Despite this history of liberality it is now sought to overthrow and reverse the policy of granting a few rights and privileges to railroad workers and it is now sought to inaugurate a contrary policy, setting at nought the jurisdiction and venue provisions which have stood the test of time for 40 years and rejecting a great body of precedents established by the courts for the guidance of bench and bar.

II. FORUM NON CONVENIENS DOES NOT AND SHOULD NOT APPLY TO THE EMPLOYEES OF A RAILROAD COMPANY ENGAGED IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

Before discussing the circumstances which differentiate an action for injuries or death brought by a railroad employee or his beneficiaries against a common carrier by railroad engaged in interstate commerce, it will be helpful to consider the background of the doctrine generally. We will then point out the circumstances which differentiate an action brought to recover for the death or personal injury of a railroad employee from those brought by other members of the public generally.

It is a fundamental concept of American jurisprudence that at common law an action to recover damages for death or personal injury is not local but