Stanley Forman Reed

“ Unless there is some hidden meaning in the language Congress has employed, the injured workman or his surviving dependents may choose from the entire territory served by the railroad any place in which to sue, and in which to choose either a federal or a state court of which to ask his remedy. There is nothing which requires a plaintiff to whom such a choice is given to exercise it is an self-denying or large-hearted manner. ”

“ There is nothing to restrain use of that privilege as all choices of tribunal are commonly used by all plaintiffs to get away from judges who are considered to be unsympathetic and to get before those who are considered more favorable; to get away from juries thought to be smallminded in the matter of verdicts and to get to those thought to be generous; to escape courts whose procedures are burdensome to the plaintiff and to seek out courts whose procedures make the going easy. ”

“ That such a privilege puts a burden on interstate commerce may well be admitted, but Congress has the power to burden. The Federal Employers' Liability Act itself leaves interstate commerce under the burden of a medieval system of compensating the injured railroad worker or his survivors. ”

“ So viewed, the real issue is whether a plaintiff which a cause of action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq., may go shopping for a judge or a jury believed to be more favorable than he would find in his home forum. An advantage which it is hoped will be reflected in a judgment is what makes plaintiffs leave home and incur burdens of expense and inconvenience that would be regarded as oppressive if forced upon them. And that is what makes railroads seek injunctions such as this one.
The judiciary has never a favored this sort of shopping for a forum. ”

“ Even if Missouri, by reason of its control of its own courts, might refuse to open them to such a case, it does not follow that another state may close Missouri's courts to one with a federal cause of action. If Missouri elects to entertain the case, the courts of no other state can obstruct or prevent its exercise of jurisdiction as conferred by the federal statute or its right to obtain evidence and to distribute the proceeds, if any, in accordance with the Federal Employers' Liability Act. ”

“ The functioning of this backward system of dealing with industrial accidents in interstate commerce burdens it with perhaps two dollars of judgment for every dollar that actually reaches those who have been damaged, and it leaves the burden of many injuries to be borne by them utterly uncompensated. ”

“ But Congress thereby merely spelt out what has always been unquestioned constitutional doctrine. 'It is a general rule that the grant of jurisdiction to one court does not, of itself, imply that the jurisdiction is to be exclusive. * * * Upon the state courts, equally with the courts of the Union, rests the obligation to guard and enforce every right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States whenever those rights are involved in any suit or proceedings before them.' United States v. ”

“ We do not deal here with the power of Missouri by judicial decision or legislative enactment to regulate the use of its courts generally as was approved in the Douglas or the Chambers cases, note 6 supra. We are considering another state's power to so control its own citizens that they cannot exercise the federal privilege of litigating a federal right in the court of another state.
State courts have assumed the right to enjoin their citizens from proceeding in the courts of other states. ”

“ The permission granted by Congress to sue in state courts may be exercised only where the carrier is found doing business. If suits in federal district courts at those points do not unduly burden interstate commerce, suits in similarly located state courts cannot be burdensome. As Congress has permitted both the state and federal suits, its determination that the carriers must bear the incidental burden is a determination that the state courts may not treat the normal expense and inconvenience of trial in permitted places, such as the one selected here, as inequitable and unconscionable. ”

“ This judicial treatment of the subject of venue leads Congress and the parties to think of the choice of a forum as a private matter between litigants and in cases like the present obscures the public interest in venue practices behind a rather fantastic fiction that a widow is harassing the Illinois Central Railroad. ”

“ The removal prohibition of the 1910 Act must be regarded as a phase of the movement to ease the pressure upon the lower federal courts by curtailing access to them rather than by multiplying unduly the number of federal judges. ”

“ Since the existence of the cause of action and the privilege of vindicating rights under the F.E.L.A. in state courts spring from federal law, the right to use in state courts of proper venue where their jurisdiction is adequate is of the same quality as the right of sue in federal courts. It is no more subject to interference by state action than was the federal venue in the Kepner case. ”

“ Has Congress, by providing explicitly that state courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction of suits under the Act, withdrawn from each state its recognized power to enjoin persons within its jurisdiction from bringing a suit under the Act 'contrary to equity and good conscience' in the courts of another state? This question was wholly outside the scope of the Kepner case. It was not presented, and was therefore not decided, by that case.
The relevant circumstances here are these. A resident of Tennessee was killed in a railroad accident occurring in Tennessee. ”

“ The specific declaration in section 6 that the United States courts should have concurrent jurisdiction with those of the several states and the prohibition against removal point clearly to the conclusion that Congress has exercised its authority over interstate commerce to the extent of permitting suits in state courts, despite the incidental burden, where process may be obtained on a defendant, not merely soliciting business but actually carrying on railroading by operating trains and maintaining traffic offices within the territory of the court's jurisdiction. ”

“ The judiciary power of every government looks beyond its own local or municipal laws, and in civil cases lays hold of all subjects of litigation between parties within its jurisdiction, though the causes of dispute are relative to the laws of the most distant part of the globe. ”

“ The fatal accident had occurred at Memphis, Tennessee. After a temporary injunction issued, Mrs. Miles promptly dismissed her Missouri suit and was discharged as administratrix by the Tennessee probate court. A Missouri administrator was then appointed at her suggestion, and he instituted another Missouri suit for the same casue of action. The Illinois Central filed an amended and supplemental bill, adding decedent's children, likewise residents of Tennessee, as defendants, and enlarging its prayer to forbid furthering the new suit in any manner or receiving the proceeds of any judgment. ”

“ Moreover, the Constitution would not prevent Missouri from declining to entertain a suit to vindicate a federal right, such as was brought here, if an action to enforce a similar non-federal right would also not lie in her courts. The availability of state courts for the enforcement of federal rights has not resulted in putting federal rights on any different footing from state rights. ”

“ This Court saw no discrimination against personal representatives of any decedent since their right to sue did not depend upon their citizenship but upon the citizenship of their decedent. In the latter case a statute of New York, which gave only discretionary jurisdiction to suits by non-residents but compulsory jurisdiction to suits by residents was held valid because it treated citizens and noncitizens alike and tested their right to maintain an action by their residence or nonresidence.↑ This is not the position of the federal courts. ”

“ As in the Kepner case, there is in this case no occasion to go into the question of the availability as support for an injunction of a charge of interference with interstate commerce by reason of the burden of expense and inconvenience. ”

“ I do not believe this amendment is necessary. I believe it is thoroughly established that the federal courts and the state courts have concurrent jurisdiction. But in order to avoid courts being misled upon this proposition this specific provision is thought to be necessary in the law.' 45 Cong.Rec. 3995. See also his remarks at 45 Cong.Rec. 4034, 4035.
The Court appears to draw comfort from the provision of the Act prohibiting removal of a suit from a state court of competent jurisdiction to a federal court. The bill as passed by the House contained no such provision. ”