The Virginia Law Register Volume 19

Book excerpt: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ...was adduced, raising the issue that plaintifi"s injury was received while employed on a train engaged in interstate commerce."1 And in a Georgia Case heretofore cited, in which the plaintiff specifically based his action upon the Alabama statute, it otherwise appearing from the petition, and afterwards from the evidence, that the case arose in interstate commerce and was controlled by the federal act, it was held that an amendment to the answer setting up that fact Was in the nature of a plea in abatement and came too late because not filed at the appearance term."'2 The error, if any, in the ruling in that case was harmless, however, since it further zlWears that the court discarded all references in the petition to the Alabama statute and tried the case under, and gave judgment in accordance with, the federal act.63 In the Scale Case, it was held by the Federal Supreme Court, reversing the Texas court, that an objection by an interstate railway carrier sued for the death of an employee that, if liable at all, it was under the Federal Act of April 22, 1908, and, by the 61-Time Of interposing plea or objection that case is controlled terms of that act, liable only to the personal representatives of the deceased, and not to the plaintiffs, who were his widow and parents, was interposed in time, so that the state court erred in overruling it, where the petition stated a case under the state statute, and the carrier, having called attention to the federal statute by special exceptions, and having suggested that the state statute might not be the applicable one, again made the specific objection, grounded on the federal statute, after the evidence disclosed that the real case was controlled by such statute.M Upon familiar...