Tinsley v. Treat

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Tinsley v. Treat
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Argued December 3–4, 1906
Decided March 4, 1907
Full case nameTinsley v. Treat
Citations 205 U.S. 20 ( more )
27 S. Ct. 430; 51 L. Ed. 689; 1907 U.S. LEXIS 1448
Court membership
Chief Justice
Melville Fuller
Associate Justices
John M. Harlan  · David J. Brewer
Edward D. White  · Rufus W. Peckham
Joseph McKenna  · Oliver W. Holmes Jr.
William R. Day  · William H. Moody

Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U.S. 20 (1907), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that found while an indictment in a removal proceeding constitutes prima facie evidence of probable cause, it is not conclusive, so evidence put forth by a defendant showing that no offense triable in the district to which removal is sought had been committed is admissible, and its exclusion is not mere error, but the denial of a right secured under the Federal Constitution. [1]

Supreme Court of the United States Highest court in the United States

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 small range of cases, such as 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 100–150 of the more than 7,000 cases that it is asked to review.

An indictment is a criminal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an indictable offence, an offence that requires an indictment.

Removal jurisdiction

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Contents

The provisions of the Safety Appliance Act of March 2, 1893, amended April 1, 1896, declared it to be unlawful for any common carrier engaged in interstate commerce to haul or permit to be hauled or used on its line any car used in moving interstate commerce not equipped with couplers coupling automatically by impact, and which can be uncoupled without the necessity of men going between the ends of the cars, relate to all kinds of cars running on the rails, including locomotives and steam shovel cars. Johnson v. Southern Pacific.

A common carrier in common law countries is a person or company that transports goods or people for any person or company and that is responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport. A common carrier offers its services to the general public under license or authority provided by a regulatory body. The regulatory body has usually been granted "ministerial authority" by the legislation that created it. The regulatory body may create, interpret, and enforce its regulations upon the common carrier with independence and finality, as long as it acts within the bounds of the enabling legislation.

The object of the statute was to protect the lives and limbs of railroad employees by rendering it unnecessary for men operating the couplers to go between the ends of the cars, and the words "used in moving interstate traffic" occurring therein are not to be taken in a narrow sense.

In a suit based upon the Safety Appliance Act of March 2, 1893, as amended April 1, 1896, the plaintiff is not called upon to negative the proviso of § 6 of said act either in his pleadings or proofs. Such proviso merely creates an exception, and if the defendant wishes to rely thereon, the burden is upon it to bring itself within the terms of the exception; those who set up such an exception must establish it.

Assumption of risk as extended to dangerous conditions of machinery, premises, and the like, obviously shades into negligence as commonly understood. The difference between the two is one of degree, rather than of kind.

Section 8 of the Automatic Coupler Act having exonerated the employee from assumption of risk under specified conditions, the employee's rights in that regard should not be sacrificed by charging him with assumption of risk under another name, for example, with contributory negligence.

In this case, the so-called contributory negligence of the deceased employee was so involved with and dependent upon erroneous views of the statute that the judgment complained of must be reversed.

In some common law jurisdictions, contributory negligence is a defense to a tort claim based on negligence. If it is available, the defense completely bars plaintiffs from any recovery if they contribute to their own injury through their own negligence.

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U.S. 20 (1907).
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