Baier v. Selke

112 Ill. App. 568, 1903 Ill. App. LEXIS 554
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 14, 1904
DocketGen. No. 4,230
StatusPublished

This text of 112 Ill. App. 568 (Baier v. Selke) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baier v. Selke, 112 Ill. App. 568, 1903 Ill. App. LEXIS 554 (Ill. Ct. App. 1904).

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Dibell

delivered the opinion of the court.

Baier and Ohlendorf operated a brewery at Freeport. On one of the upper floors of their brew house was a rice tub in which rice was cooked for purposes connected with brewing. It was six or seven feet high, and six feet wide. An upright shaft came up from a lower floor and passed through the center of the rice tub. This shaft had attached to it in the tub several iron arms or shovels, some extending part way and some almost all the way from the shaft to the side of the tub. These arms revolved with the shaft. Two fixed cross-bars extended through the tub to hold the sides from spreading. There was a steam pipe near the bottom of the tub. This rice tub shaft was connected with the main shaft by a clutch on the lower floor, and was kept revolving while rice was being cooked, to prevent the rice from burning or cooking unequally in different parts of the tub. The rice tub was covered, and had a door in the top by which a person could enter it. In cooking, rice adhered to the sides and bars and arms, and it was necessary to clean the tub each time after it had been used. The person who cleaned it had to enter the tub and scrub the inside thoroughly, and the operation took considerable time.

Weber was foreman. Selke was an employee. On the morning of June 18, 1902, the brewery was short of help, and Weber sent Selke, who was working in the cellar,'to the brew house to clean out the rice tub. It appears that the clutch connecting the rice tub shaft with the main shaft was not disconnected, as it should have been by some one. While Selke was at work in the rice tub, Weber threw in the clutch connecting the main shaft with the engine. This started the rice tub shaft and set its arms to revolving. Selke gave a loud outcry and was heard, and the machinery was very quickly stopped.. Selke was then taken out of the tub. His body and head were lacerated and bruised, his body was coxrered with blood, some of his teeth were broken and others loosened, and his clothing was badly torn. He claimed his kidneys were injured. His escape from instant death was marvelous. He was removed to a hospital, and was treated for his injuries; and was incapacitated for labor for a long time. He brought this suit against his employers to recover damages for these injuries. Plaintiff filed an appropriate declaration consisting of two original and two additional counts, alleging he was in the exercise of due care, and charging in various ways negligence of defendants in permitting said rice tub machinery to be or become connected with the main machinery, with-, out warning plaintiff, and in starting said machinery while plaintiff was in the tub, and in permitting plaintiff to work at that place without instructing him as to the care and caution required, plaintiff being, it was alleged, unskilled and inexperienced in the devices by which said rice tub machinery was operated, etc. Defendants filed the general issue and special pleas. A demurrer was sustained to the special pleas, and that action is not assigned for error. Hpon a jury trial plaintiff had a verdict for $1,000. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were interposed by defendants, and denied. Plaintiff had judgment and defendants appeal.

It is argued the court erred in rulings upon objections to the introduction of testimony. The abstract does not show that any objections were made to the introduction of testimony, that the com t made any rulings upon any objections of that character, or that any exceptions were taken by defendants to any such rulings. The rules of this court require a party bringing a cause here to file abstracts sufficient fully to present every error and exception relied upon. Like rules exist also in the Supreme Court and in the other Appellate Courts of this state, and they have often been enforced. See Traeger v. Mutual Building Association, 189 Ill. 314; Douglass v. Miller, 102 Ill. App. 345; Marsh v. Jones, 106 Ill. App. 577; Home Guardian of America v. Holt, 108 Ill. App. 578, and cases cited in those opinions. In C. P. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wolf, 137 Ill. 360, speaking of an alleged error in the admission of testimony, the court said: “ The appellant’s abstract shows no-such objection or exception, and said abstract must, as against the appellant, be deemed to be sufficiently full and accurate to present all the errors upon which it now relies.” Unless we abandon these reasonable and necessary rules, we must hold that the abstract in this case presents no question concerning the rulings of the court upon the admission of testimony. This cannot be obviated by the reply brief. Appellants cannot make a case in the reply brief not presented by the abstract.

At the close of all the evidence defendants requested the court to give an instruction directing a verdict for defendants. This the court refused, and defendants excepted. This presents the question whether the testimony fairly tended to make a case for plaintiff. Plaintiff introduced proof tending to show that he had never cleaned or been in a rice tub before, though he had cleaned a mash tub; that Weber directed him to go "and clean the rice tub, and told him everything was ready, and directed him to hurry; that plaintiff went and began cleaning the tub on the outside; that Weber came and said to him: “ Don’t you make hocus pocus outside; go right inside; everything is ready; ” ’that plaintiff looked in the tub, and Weber said: “Just go in; that don’t bite you;” that Weber told him everything was ready and not to be afraid, and said: “ The machinery don’t start up there;” that Weber said everything was all right in the rice tub. Plaintiff also introduced proof that he did not know how the rice tub or any machinery in the brew house was connected with the main shaft, and was not acquainted with the clutches in the brew house; that his knowledge of the machinery was confined to another part of the premises called the malt house; that he did not know where the clutch to the rice tub shaft was; and that in going from the cellar to the rice tub that morning he went by a different way from that described by defendant’s witnesses as leading by the clutch connecting the rice tub shaft with the main shaft. Plaintiff also showed that Weber was defendant’s foreman, with power to hire and discharge men and give them orders, and that Weber turned on°the clutch connecting the main shaft with the engine, and that that act set the rice tub machinery in motion and injured plaintiff. We see no force, in the argument that though Weber was a foreman when he sent plaintiff to the rice tub, he was a fellow-servant when he turned on the power and started the machinery in the rice tub. „ It may well be that setting the machinery in motion to do the work of the plant was an act of the principal, an act of control, and equally so whether Weber turned the lever or whether he sent some one else with orders to do it. In any event under the instructions requested and obtained by defendant, this was a question of fact for the jury. C. & E. I. R. R. Co. v. Driscoll; 207 Ill. 9. In our judgment the proof above recited tended to make a case for plaintiff, and the court therefore properly refused to direct a verdict for defendants.

Defendants introduced proof contradicting parts of the case made by plaintiff. Weber denied that he told plaint-tiff everything was all right, that the machinery would not move, etc.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis Railway Co. v. Wolf
27 N.E. 78 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1891)
Traeger v. Mutual Building & Loan Ass'n
59 N.E. 544 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1901)
Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad v. Driscoll
69 N.E. 620 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1903)
Douglass v. Miller
102 Ill. App. 345 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1902)
Marsh v. Jones
106 Ill. App. 577 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1903)
Home Guardian of America v. Holt
108 Ill. App. 578 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1903)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
112 Ill. App. 568, 1903 Ill. App. LEXIS 554, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baier-v-selke-illappct-1904.