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and receive certain compensation. In the case before us this was claimed and paid.
The defendant owned the track over which the cars passed at the time of the injury, but had no control over the train or crew nor was it in any way operated by employees of that company. They did, however, give permission to the Isthmian Canal Commission to operate this work train on their track.
The question, therefore, to be considered and determined is, does this fact make the Panama Railroad Company liable for the injury referred to? It is not necessary to go into all the questions that relate to lessors and lessees, nor to the question as to how far those not connected with either the lessor or lessee would be affected as compared with the servants of either. The difference between the two has been well settled, the latter having a contractual relation. In Elliott on Railroads, volume 1, section 472, we find the following:
The person who takes service -with the lessee company voluntarily accepts that company as h is employer, and out of this contract comes the duty which the contracting parties owe to each other. The employee of the lessee certainly owes no duty to the lessor, and it is difficult to conceive a tenable ground for the conclusion that the lessor owes a duty to the employee.
The employer assumes to perform the duties imposed upon it by law in its character of employer, and the employee voluntarily takes the lessee company as his employer. The employee does not contract with the lessee as the agent of the lessor, but contracts directly with the lessee as its own representative and not as the representative of some other person or corporation.
In a note to this text, referring to the B. and 0. R. R. Co. vs. Paul, 143 Ind., the court, after drawing the distinction between wvayfarers and employees, uses the following language:
There is no privity between persons injured in such a case and the operating company. It is not so with an employee who voluntarily enters the service of the latter company with a knowledge of the facts and participates knowingly in the wrong, if wrong! it be.
In Mo. Pac. R. R. Co., vs. Watts, 63 Tex., we find the following:
it was held that the lessoris not liable to the servant of the lessee for injuries received in the line of service required of him in operating the road
The same doctrine is held in the case of Willard. vs. Spartanburg, R. R. Co., 124 Fed. Rep., together with other cases therein especia lly referred to.
It will be seen from the above that is is the duty of the employee to look to his immediate employer.

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