South Buffalo Railway Co. v. Ahern

Disability awards by the New York Workmen’s Compensation Board to an interstate railroad employee precipitate this attack on § 113 of that state’s Workmen’s Compensation Law as unconstitutionally conflicting with the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. While employed as a switchman by the appellant Railway, Thomas J. Ahern in July 1944 suffered a coronary occlusion as a result of unusual physical exertion in attempting to “throw a stuck switch” in the Railway’s Lackawanna, New York, yards.1 On January 15, 1945, he filed a claim with the New York Workmen’s Compensation Board, asserting…