Gardner v. Panama Railroad Co. (342 U.S. 29)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided November 5, 1951 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 342 U.S. 29 · 72 S. Ct. 12
- Docket
- No. 22
- Argued
- October 11, 1951
- Decided
- November 5, 1951
- Term
- October Term 1951
- Vote
- 8–0
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Clark, Justice Burton, Justice R. H. Jackson, Justice Douglas, Justice Frankfurter, Justice Reed, Justice Black
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. This suit in admiralty, a libel in personam brought in the District Court for the Canal Zone, is petitioner’s third attempt to secure damages for injuries alleged to have been sustained on December 3, 1947, while a passenger on board respondent’s steamship Panama. Petitioner instituted her first action against the respondent on April 10,1948. This complaint was dismissed October 7, 1948, after the company successfully maintained that petitioner’s only remedy was to sue the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act; that respondent, whose entire stock is owned by the United States, was a “federal agency” within the meaning of that Act. An action against the United States filed on November 29, 1948 — ^still within the one-year period of limitation— was dismissed by the District Court before reaching trial on the merits, after Congress had amended, on July 16, 1949, the Federal Tort Claims Act, excluding from its coverage “Any claim arising from the activities of the Panama Railroad Company.” Five days later, on October 19, 1949, petitioner commenced the present suit.- Respondent pleaded laches on the theory that, since the one-year Canal Zone statute of limitations now barred any action at law, laches should bar any remedy in admiralty. The District Court sustained this defense, and entered judgment for the respondent. The Court of Appeals affirmed on that…
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