was passed, this exception had expired-all services under it had been rendered and paid for, and with other exceptions not affecting this case the general rule was in force. It is more rational to suppose that Congress was dealing with present affairs than that it was reopening transactions that might be ten years old and that must have been finished, at the latest, nearly a year before. And this construction is confirmed when we notice that the increased pay and allowances are given from the date of the commission, that is, if the claimants are right, from the date of their retirement without regard to the time when their active duty began. In these cases it was continuous with their service before retirement. But it might have begun years afterwards and yet by the statute the date of the increase in pay and the allowances would have been the

same.

The conclusion to which the statutes directly concerned would lead us, is confirmed still further by consideration of the Naval Appropriation Act of August 22, 1912, c. 335; 37 Stat. 328, 329. This act provided that thereafter, any Naval Officer on the retired list might, with his consent, in the discretion of the Secretary of the Navy, be ordered to such duties as he might be able to perform, and while so employed in time of peace should receive the pay and allowances of an officer on the active list of the same rank, provided that he was not to receive more than the pay and allowances of a lieutenant, senior grade, on the active list of like length of service, and, if his retired pay exceeded that, then he was to receive his retired pay only. The clash that there would be between the policy of this act and that of 1913 if construed as the claimants would have it construed is plain.

Finally it may be worth noticing that the reports that introduced the enactment pointed out as the evil to be remedied that under the Act of June 22, 1874, c. 392; 18 Stat. 191, the only officers who did not receive the pay of

their grade from the time they took rank as stated in their commissions, were the youngest officers, who were appointed to the lowest grade and therefore not promoted to fill a vacancy as contemplated in the act of 1874. House Rep. No. 1089. 62d Cong., 2d Sess. Senate Rep. No. 1217. 62d Cong., 3d Sess.

Judgments affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS took no part in the consideration and decision of these cases.

NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v.

MEESE.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT.

No. 133. Argued December 10, 1915.-Decided January 17, 1916.

Federal courts must accept the construction of a state statute deliberately adopted by the highest court of that State.

The highest court of the State having held, in construing the Washington Workmen's Compensation Act of 1911, that the compensation thereby provided in the cases covered by its terms was intended to be exclusive of every other remedy and that all causes of action theretofore existing and not saved by its provisos were done away with, the Federal court should accept that construction.

In view of that construction, held that although the act did not specifically repeal §§ 183 and 194, Rem. & Ball. Code, the personal representatives of an employé, killed, while in the course, and at the place, of his employment, by the negligence of one not his employer, cannot maintain a suit at law therefor against the latter.

On the record in this case it does not appear that the Workmen's

239 U.S.

Argument for Respondent.

Compensation Act of Washington is unconstitutional as a denial of the equal protection of the law.

211 Fed. Rep. 254, reversed.

THE facts, which involve the construction of the Workmen's Compensation Act of Washington and the duty of the Federal court to follow the construction of that statute in cases arising thereunder, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Charles W. Bunn for petitioner.

Mr. Govnor Teats, with whom Mr. Leo Teats and Mr. Ralph Teats were on the brief, for the respondent:

The Workmen's Compensation Act of Washington, does not and never was intended to deny to or take from the heirs or personal representatives of the deceased husband and father, their right of action for damages against the railway company, it not being an employer of the deceased whose wrongful act caused his death. The death of respondent's intestate having been caused by the wrongful act and negligence of one not his employer, his heirs, the respondents herein, are not barred by the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act from maintaining their statutory right of action against the railway company by reason of the fact that at the time the deceased was injured, from which injuries he died, he was working with a class of employés covered by the act and acting in the discharge of his duties as an employé of that company and at the plant of that company.

The Workmen's Compensation Law was a product of certain conditions existing between workmen and employers in Washington by reason of the fellow-servant, assumption of the risk and contributory negligence doctrine of the common law in the first place and the waste of money paid by employers to casualty companies, the

Argument for Respondent.

239 U. S.

uncertainty of relief, the abuses of such companies towards the injured workman, producing estrangement between workmen and employer, inimical to all concerned including the public, and the expense to the State from increased personal injury litigation between master and servant.

The Workmen's Compensation Law was not intended and does not relate to the right of action of a workman or his heirs against negligent third persons not his employers, except as provided in §§ 3 and 5 of the act and then at his option.

The manifest intent of the law is not to cover and compensate for accidents generally but to cover accidents occurring in those employments and occupations which are specifically classed as and which may be found by the commission to be extra hazardous. Guerrieri v. Industrial Ins. Comm., 84 Washington, 266.

The Supreme Court of the State of Washington has not by construction or otherwise extended the application of the law to cases similar to the one at bar, and when called upon to construe the law in a case of this sort will follow the construction placed upon it by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 211 Fed. Rep. 254.

To extend the application of the Workmen's Compensation Law to right of action of a workman against a third person under the facts of this case, would be unconstitutional, and would be a discrimination against the respondents and not an equal protection under the law.

In support of these contentions of defendant in error, see also Barbier v. Connelly, 113 U. S. 27; Bouvier's Law Dict., Title Preamble; Bowen v. Lease, 2 Hill, 226; Diana v. Lamerous, 114 Wisconsin, 44; Endlich, Int. of Statutes, § 59; Gulf &c. Ry. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150; Hanly v. Sims, 175 Indiana, 345; Huntworth v. Tanner, 45 Wash. Dec. 482; Kelley v. Madison, 43 Wisconsin, 638; 28 Am. Rep. 576; Lewis, Sutherland Stat. Const., §§ 120-145; McGaffin

v. Cohoes, 74 N. Y. 387; Mo. Pac. Ry. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205; Peet v. Mills, 76 Washington, 437; Replogle v. School Dist., 84 Washington, 581; State v. Clausen, 65 Washington, 195; State v. Mountain Timber Co., 75 Washington, 581; State v. Taylor, 21 Washington, 672; State v. Haun, 47 L. R. A. 369; Sutherland Statutory Const., §§ 388499.

MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the court.

Benjamin Meese, an employé of the Seattle Brewing and Malting Company, was fatally injured on April 12, 1913, while engaged about his ordinary duties at its plant in Seattle. Alleging that his death resulted from the negligence of the petitioner railway company, his wife and children brought this action for damages in the District Court of the United States. They relied upon the following sections, Remington and Ballinger's Annotated Codes and Statutes of Washington:

"Section 183. When the death of a person is caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another, his heirs or personal representatives may maintain an action for damages against the person causing the death."

"Section 194. No action for a personal injury to any person occasioning his death shall abate, nor shall such right of action determine, by reason of such death, if he have a wife or child living, but such action may ; be prosecuted, or commenced and prosecuted, in favor of such wife or in favor of the wife and children

The railway company demurred, specifying as one of the grounds therefor, "That there is no authority in law under which the plaintiffs' action can be maintained as against this answering defendant, it appearing from the complaint that Benjamin Meese, on account of whose wrongful death this action was brought, sustained the injuries