Anderson v. Pittsburgh Coal Co.

122 N.W. 794, 108 Minn. 455, 1909 Minn. LEXIS 733
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedJuly 23, 1909
DocketNos. 16,075—(100)
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 122 N.W. 794 (Anderson v. Pittsburgh Coal Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Anderson v. Pittsburgh Coal Co., 122 N.W. 794, 108 Minn. 455, 1909 Minn. LEXIS 733 (Mich. 1909).

Opinion

Jaggard, J.

Plaintiff and respondent, a coal heaver, was engaged in unloading defendant’s boat, loaded with coal. Clam shells, or buckets, four feet wide and seven feet long when closed, were lowered into and raised out of hatchways by means of wire cables running over sheaves at the end of booms which were projected over the vessel. The boat being unloaded was provided with an upper and a middle deck. At the time of the accident here involved the coal was being taken from the hold. The machinery was operated by a man known as a “hoister,” who received, from a man on deck known as a “hatch tender,” signals by which his actions were governed in .controlling the movements of the clam shell. Immediately before the accident the clam shell had been lowered and was swung by plaintiff to a place in the hold of the boat. The clam shell was closed under the coal. Plaintiff was steadying it. The clam shell caught a part of the floor' of the boat. Additional power was put on the hoisting apparatus. "When the bucket was raised it carried along a part of a board. It swung against plaintiff, and knocked him down on the coal in the hold, but did not injure him. The bucket was “swinging too far away.” It had acquired too much swing, so the hatch tender signalled the hoister to stop it, and shouted, “Down the bucket!” The hoister dropped it on plaintiff’s right hip while he was lying on the coal and before he could get away. The hatch tender did not give the signal or warning required by his prescribed duty and the custom then current. The bucket was raised, when some one “hollered,” and was swung over to the other side. It then swung back to the place where plaintiff was, and hit him again on his left leg above the knee. The clam shell lay on the top of him a minuté or so, and then was moved to the center of .the hatch and was lowered down. According to the plaintiff’s testimony the hatch tender could have seen plaintiff while he was lying on the coal after having [458]*458been struck by tbe clam. Tbe batch tender testified that be looked at tbe boister when be gave tbe signal to lower tbe bucket. He did not look down where tbe plaintiff was. He bad, however, seen tbe plaintiff take bold of tbe clam when it descended through tbe hatchway and push it to one side. Tbe testimony as to whether be saw plaintiff when tbe clam shell was swinging is not clear. Tbe jury returned a verdict of $8,000. This appeal was taken from tbe order of tbe trial court denying defendant’s alternative motion.

1. "Whether tbe proximate cause of tbe injury was tbe dropping of the clam shell upon plaintiff or tbe previous swinging of tbe bucket was a question of pure fact. Tbe jury was entitled to believe tbe plaintiff’s version. Its finding for him should not be disturbed because of this question.

2. Tbe principal contention of defendant is that under tbe rules laid down by tbe authorities it bad performed its absolute duty to plaintiff, that tbe failure of tbe batcbman to give warning was a mere detail of tbe work, and that therefore be and plaintiff were fellow servants.

A. Tbe rules of law as to bow far tbe master may delegate bis duty to bis servant appear in a measure to have been rather rendered uncertain than to have been definitely determined by tbe mass of decision on this subject. Tbe opinion has been frequently expressed as in Brabbits v. Chicago, 38 Wis. 289-299 (1875) : It would be monstrous to allow [tbe master] to relieve himself from all liability for a breach of that duty [to tbe servant] by simply charging one of [bis] inferior officers or servants with its performance. This principle has been reiterated times without number by tbe Wisconsin court and by almost every court in tbe country. An especially clear statement of tbe master’s duty to protect in fact — to actually do what circumstances require, and not merely to employ another to do for him — will be found in Toledo Brewing & Malting Co. v. Bosch, 101 Fed. 530, 41 C. C. A. 482. And see 2 Labatt, Master & S. §§ 552, 553, 556. To universally apply this principle to tbe master’s duty concerning a safe place would necessarily impose liability on tbe master in tbe great majority of cases, and, it has been thought, would practically eliminate tbe doctrine of fellow servant. Courts have properly refused [459]*459to go to this extent. In consequence such application has been restricted, usually with reason, but sometimes to an unjustifiable extreme. Thus it has even been held that “the positive, personal and nondelegable duty of a master, to provide a reasonably safe place in which, and reasonably safe appliances with which, to work, or a reasonably safe method of doing the work, is a duty of construction and provision, and not of operation.” Kinnear Mnfg. Co. v. Carlisle, 152 Fed. 933, 82 C. C. A. 81. And see Pennsylvania Co. v. Fishack, 123 Fed. 465, 59 C. C. A. 269.

The authorities as to when and how far the master may by selection of proper servants and by adequate directions to them to warn, as distinguished from instructing other servants of danger, secure exoneration from harm inflicted on such other servants by such other failure in fact to warn, are certainly not in harmony. 26 Cyc. 1337. In Western Electric Co. v. Hanselmann, 136 Fed. 564, 566, 69 C. C. A. 346, 70 L. R. A. 765, Townsend, J., expresses the opinion that they are in “irreconcilable conflict.” The decisions which have refused to hold that the giving of signals is a duty which cannot be delegated will be found collected in 2 Labatt, Master & S. § 607. Many other cases in which failure to warn servants as to danger arising from the execution of the details of the work was held to be the wrong of a fellow servant will be found collected in a note by Mr. Labatt. 54 L. R. A. 120.

Defendant’s contention is that this case is supported, moreover, not only by a considerable group of these more general authorities, but also by a number of cases which involved facts substantially identical with those in the case at bar. Thus it was held in Portance v. Lehigh, 101 Wis. 574, 77 N. W. 875, 70 Am. St. 932, that the workman and the hatehman were fellow servants, because the master who properly selects and instructs a man to give notice to the other employees of the movements of the apparatus in unloading coal from a vessel is not responsible for his failure to give warning. To the same effect, see Ocean v. Cheeney, 86 Ga. 278, 12 S. E. 351; Cheeney v. Ocean, 92 Ga. 726, 19 S. E. 33, 44 Am. St. 113 ; Hermann v. Port Blakely Mill Co. (D. C.) 71 Fed. 853. Defendants refer us also to cases decided 'by this court involving traveling cranes which will subsequently be considered. There are, moreover, other decisions of this court tending directly to sustain defendant’s contention.

[460]*460B. Notwithstanding this formidable array of general, specific, and local authorities, we are none the less of opinion that the proper conclusion is that the workman in the hold and the hatchman were not féllow servants.

(a) The specific decisions are not controlling as authority nor convincing on principle. The Wisconsin case is not cogent for a number of reasons. The specific authorities which it cites fail to support the conclusion it reaches, with the exception of Ocean v. Cheeney, which it quotes as reported in 12 S. E. 351. That report contained the statement of the conclusion that the laborer and the hatchman were fellow servants, but without explaining why. The Wisconsin court’s attention was evidently not called to the fact that, about six years before the decision of the Portance case, Cheeney v. Ocean came up again for decision.

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Bluebook (online)
122 N.W. 794, 108 Minn. 455, 1909 Minn. LEXIS 733, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anderson-v-pittsburgh-coal-co-minn-1909.