Allen v. Quercus Lumber Co.

168 S.W. 794, 182 Mo. App. 280, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 411
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 10, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 168 S.W. 794 (Allen v. Quercus Lumber Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Allen v. Quercus Lumber Co., 168 S.W. 794, 182 Mo. App. 280, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 411 (Mo. Ct. App. 1914).

Opinion

FARRINGTON, J.

This case is here on the second appeal, the plaintiff having first recovered a judgment for two thousand dollars which was reversed and the cause remanded as shown by the opinion of this court reported in 171 Mo. App. 482, 157 S. W. 661. On retrial the plaintiff recovered a judgment for fifteen hundred dollars and defendant brings its appeal.

The case was tried both times on an amended petition which is as follows:

“Plaintiff states that the defendant now is, and was at all the times hereinafter mentioned, a business corporation, duly organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Missouri, engaged in the manufacture of lumber at its plant adjacent to the city of Poplar Bluff, in said county.

“Plaintiff further states that on the 28th day of June, 1911, while the plaintiff, as a common laborer, was in the employ of the defendant, the defendant, its [283]*283officers and agents, well knowing, or by the exercise of ordinary care conld have known, that Walter Foister was inexperienced, unskillful, habitually careless and incompetent to operate an engine and derrick then used by the defendant in lifting logs from place to place in defendant’s lumber yard at its plant aforesaid, carelessly and negligently at and prior to the date last aforesaid, employed and retained in its employ the said Walter Foister (a fellow-servant of plaintiff) to operate said engine and derrick, and as a result of the carelessness and negligence of the defendant, its officers and agents, in employing and retaining in its employ said Walter Foister, for the purpose of operating said engine and derrick, after the defendant, its officers and agents knew, or by the exercise of ordinary care could have known, that said Walter Foister was inexperienced, unskillful, habitually careless and incompetent to operate said engine and derrick with reasonable safety to plaintiff and other employees of the defendant working near and around said derrick, and as a result of the inexperience, unskillfulness, habitual carelessness and incompetency of the said Walter Foister on the date last aforesaid, while lifting a log from a railroad car to defendant’s lumber yard, by means of said derrick and engine, then being operated by said Walter Foister, said log was then and there unskillfully and carelessly caused and permitted by ‘said operator of said engine and derrick, Wal'er Foister, to suddenly and violently strike plaintiff, knocking him down upon other timbers and then to fall upon his back, head and limbs and drag entirely over, along and across his body, thereby permanently wounding and bruising plaintiff’s back, lungs, chest, hips, back portion of the head and crushing his skull in the forehead, severing the temporal artery on the left side of his forehead, whereby • plaintiff was permanently disfigured and permanently disabled from earning his daily wages, which, at the date of his injuries, [284]*284amounted to one dollar and seventy-five cents per day, and as a result of all of said injuries plaintiff has suffered and will hereafter suffer great physical pain and mental anguish, all to his damage in the sum of ten thousand dollars.

“Wherefore, plaintiff prays judgment against the defendant for the said sum of ten thousand dollars, his damages aforesaid, with all costs of this suit.”

The defendant answered by a general denial, a plea of contributory negligence, and a further averment that the injuries were suffered as a direct result of conditions which were ordinary incidental risks to the work in which plaintiff was engaged, which new matter was put in issue by a general denial in the reply-

The facts developed at this trial are so similar to those proven in the first trial that the statement contained in the opinion of Sturgis, J. (171 Mo. App. l. c. 497-500), will suffice to show the situation on this appeal, and we will in the opinion mention casually only the additional facts deemed material to a decision of the questions before us.

At the close of plaintiff’s ease an instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence was offered by the defendant and overruled.

The defendant offered no evidence, and the plaintiff requested no instructions.

The court, at the request of .the defendant, gave' the following instructions which show the theory on which the case was submitted to the jury:

“I. The court instructs the jury that if you find the issues for the plaintiff, you cannot, in determining what injuries you will compensate him for, consider such as were inflicted by the log first striking the plaintiff, hut only such as were sustained by him by reason of the log being permitted negligently to drop upon him after he had fallen, and then dragged [285]*285across his body, provided that you find only that such dragging was negligently done. ’ ’
“III. The court instructs the jury that even though you find from the evidence that the engineer, Foister, carelessly handled the engine and derrick and log on the occasion when plaintiff was injured, plaintiff is still not entitled to recover unless he had proved by the greater weight of the evidence that such carelessness was the sole and only and direct cause of his injuries.”
“IV. You are further instructed that before plaintiff can recover for any injuries inflicted upon him by the log striking him after he was knocked down, the burden is upon him to- prove by the greater weight of the evidence that after the log struck him and knocked him down, the engineer, Foister, saw, or by the exercise of ordinary care could have seen, that he had been knocked down, and that said Foister then carelessly and negligently permitted said log to fall on him, and unless plaintiff has so proved both of these facts he cannot recover for any injuries inflicted upon him by reason of the log striking or falling on him after he was first struck by it and knocked down.”
“VIII. You are instructed that the fact that Foister, on occasions previous to the one on which plaintiff was injured, may have operated the engine and derrick unskillfully and carelessly does not prove or even tend to prove that he handled said derrick and engine unskillfully and carelessly on the occasion when plaintiff was injured. ’ ’

These instructions manifestly declare correct propositions of law and would have been properly given had there been any evidence on which to submit the case to the jury..

For the disposition of this case it may be admitted that Foister, the engineer, was proven to have been [286]*286habitually careless, negligent and fractious, and handled the engine and derrick on numerous occasions in an incompetent and unskillful manner, and further, that a'knowledge of these deficiencies came home to the defendant. But for plaintiff to make out a case, he must also show that the injuries were received as a direct result of such handling of the machinery at the time the injuries were inflicted. In other words, the act of negligence and misconduct charged in the petition must have been proven to have directly contributed to his injury. [Allen v. Quercus Lumber Co., supra.] In the case of Kersey v. Railroad, 79 Mo. 362, 365, it is said: “. . . • but certainly the master cannot be held liable unless the incompetent servant was guilty of some negligence or misconduct directly contributing to produce the injury.” [See, also, Tucker v. Telephone Co., 132 Mo. App. 418, 112 S. W. 6; Stanich v.

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Bluebook (online)
168 S.W. 794, 182 Mo. App. 280, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 411, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/allen-v-quercus-lumber-co-moctapp-1914.