Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Missouri, 189 S.W.2d 253
Holding
There was sufficient evidence of negligence on the part of the defendants to justify the submission of the case to the jury and to require appellate courts to abide by the verdict rendered by the jury.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. Established pursuant to Article III of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, it has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, including suits between two or more states and those involving ambassadors. It also has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal court and state court cases that involve a point of federal constitutional or statutory law. The Court has the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution or an executive act for being unlawful. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The court may decide cases having political overtones, but it has ruled that it does not have power to decide nonjusticiable political questions. Each year it agrees to hear about one hundred to one hundred fifty of the more than seven thousand cases that it is asked to review.
The Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq. (1908), is a United States federal law that protects and compensates railroaders injured on the job.
The Illinois Central Railroad, sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa (1870). There was a significant branch to Omaha, Nebraska (1899), west of Fort Dodge, Iowa, and another branch reaching Sioux Falls, South Dakota (1877), starting from Cherokee, Iowa. The Sioux Falls branch has been abandoned in its entirety.
The Missouri Supreme Court ordered a directed verdict in favor of the employer, claiming lack of evidence of negligence. The Supreme Court overruled the State Supreme Court's ruling. The court held that there was sufficient evidence of negligence on the part of the defendants to justify the submission of the case to the jury and to require appellate courts to abide by the verdict rendered by the jury.
Evidence, broadly construed, is anything presented in support of an assertion. This support may be strong or weak. The strongest type of evidence is that which provides direct proof of the truth of an assertion. At the other extreme is evidence that is merely consistent with an assertion but does not rule out other, contradictory assertions, as in circumstantial evidence.
In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. In England and Wales, a coroner's findings are called verdicts.
Kohn v. McNulta, 147 U.S. 238 (1893), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a person should not receive compensation for injuries sustained when he is experienced in his work and there is no evidence of negligence or extenuating circumstances.
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