Poff v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company/Dissent Frankfurter

by William O. Douglas

United States Supreme Court

327 U.S. 399

Poff  v.  Pennsylvania Railroad Company

 Argued: Feb. 1, 1946. --- Decided: Feb 25, 1946

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER dissenting, with whom Mr. Justice BURTON concurs.

Congress might well have allowed recovery as a matter of course to any near relative of a railroad employee whose death was due to a carrier's negligence. Congress chose not to do so. Congress merely gave a right of action 'to certain relatives dependent upon an employee wrongfully injured, for the loss and damage resulting to them financially by reason of the wrongful death.' Michigan Cent. R.R. v. Vreeland, 227 U.S. 59, 68, 33 S.Ct. 192, 195, 57 L.Ed. 417, Ann.Cas.1914C, 176; and see Gulf, Colorado, etc., R. Co. v. McGinnis, 228 U.S. 173, 175, 33 S.Ct. 426, 427, 57 L.Ed. 785; Garrett v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 235 U.S. 308, 313, 35 S.Ct. 32, 33, 59 L.Ed. 242. Congress might have extended the benefits of its legislation to any dependent relative by using a colloquial description such as 'the nearest dependent surviving relative.' It chose not to do that. On the contrary, it used the phrase 'next of kin,' a term of precise meaning in the law. In sum, Congress carefully limited the relatives eligible for compensation for an employee's death and strictly designated the basis of eligibility. ^[1]

What Congress did was thus analyzed by the court below:

'Congress, which was willing to leave unremedied loss suffered by parents, or grandchildren, who might be totally dependent upon the deceased, could not have meant to recognize remote members of the deceased's other kin, similarly situated. The plaintiff's interpretation does not fulfill any rational purpose; it merely introduces an exception at the precise place where an exception is least to be desired or expected; it mutilates the statute, as much in its purpose as in its language. As in the case of the first two preferred classes, 'next of kin' is defined by its hereditary, not by its pecuniary, relation to the deceased; it means the next of kin as the law has always meant it; and dependency is only a selective factor, a condition upon recovery by any members of that class, as it is among members of the first two classes. The case is not therefore one in which Congress has failed to express its obvious purpose, and in which courts are free to supply the necessary omission; it is a case where-whatever that purpose-it certainly did not include what the plaintiff asserts.' Poff v. Pennsylvania R.R., 2 Cir., 150 F.2d 902, 905.

I do not find a persuasive answer to this analysis and am therefore of opinion that the judgment below should be affirmed.

Notes

1. 'That every common carrier by railroad (in interstate and foreign commerce) shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce, or, in case of the death of such employee, to his or her personal representative, for the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such employee; and, if none, then of such employee's parents; and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee, for such injury or death * * *.' 35 Stat. 65, 53 Stat. 1404, 45 U.S.C. § 51, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51.