Lockhart

The complaint alleges: “That at all of the times in this complaint mentioned, defendant company has been and now is a foreign corporation, conducting an interstate commerce business in the state of California and for the purpose of this complaint, in the county of Los Angeles, therein engaged in the business of a common carrier.

The complaint then alleges that while in the discharge of his alleged duties the plaintiff was injured through the negligence of the defendant.

The answer admits the allegations of the complaint herein quoted, denies the alleged negligence and injuries, and then alleges:

At the close of plaintiff’s case the court entered a judgment of nonsuit on motion of the defendant. This appeal is from the judgment. The only material question raised by the appeal is whether the plaintiff was employed in interstate commerce at the time of the alleged injury.

The evidence shows that he was in charge of a yard switch-engine; that his duties were to take cars in need of repairs “into the repair yard” and, after they had been repaired, to place them “on other tracks where they might be cut back into use”; that immediately before the accident he had taken about seventeen…