Felix Frankfurter

“ In order to obliterate such 'fine distinctions,' it is not necessary to jump over the moon and wipe out the basic distinction between those whose duties are tied to transportation, whatever may have been their precise work at the moment of injury, and those employees who are exposed by way of permanent occupation to no greater or different potential hazards than are the thousands upon thousands of like workers in offices other than those of railroads whom Congress has left to remedies under state law. ”

“ It was on the presupposition of this cardinal distinction between transportation and non-transportation employees of railroads that the Federal Employers' Liability Act was amended in 1939. To make it apply to clerical workers who 'further,' in a dictionary sense of the term, the interstate commerce business of railroads would have as much justification, but no more, as it would have for Congress to pass a Federal Employers' Liability Act for all employees who further large enterprises in the conduct of their interstate commerce. ”

“ Justice REED and Mr. Justice HARLAN join, dissenting.
Dissenters are not empowered to define the scope of a decision, but the way they read it may induce dissent. So it is with what the Court has here written. ”