Bock ex rel. Bock v. Rinderknecht

207 S.W. 245, 200 Mo. App. 496, 1918 Mo. App. LEXIS 180
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 3, 1918
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 207 S.W. 245 (Bock ex rel. Bock v. Rinderknecht) 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
Bock ex rel. Bock v. Rinderknecht, 207 S.W. 245, 200 Mo. App. 496, 1918 Mo. App. LEXIS 180 (Mo. Ct. App. 1918).

Opinion

BECKER, J.

— This is an action by a minor, by his next friend, for personal injuries sustained and predicated on defendant’s alleged negligence. The petition alleges the damages at $7500. The case was tried to a jury and a verdict resulted in favor of plaintiff for the sum of $1. Plaintiff thereupon filed a motion for new trial, challenging the verdict on the ground, among others, that the verdict was grossly inadequate and against the evidence and the weight of the evidence; contrary to the instruction of the court and so grossly inadequate and contrary to the evidence and the weight of the evidence as to indicate bias, passion or prejudice on the part of the jury, [499]*499and because plaintiff was entitled to substantial damages. Upon this motion being overruled plaintiff in due course brings this appeal,- assigning said ruling as error.

The record before ns discloses that the sufficiency of plaintiff’s evidence to make a case for the jury was not challenged, nor was any peremptory instruction requested on the part of the defendant at the close of the entire case.

The defendant owned and conducted a grocery store, located on the southwest corner of Carrie and Prescott avenues, in the city of St. Louis. These premises faced on Carrie avenue and the lot ran south along the line of Prescott avenue to an alley. The store building was located on the front or north end of the lot and extended back along Prescott avenue forty-eight feet. There was also a twenty foot shed at the rear of the lot which abutted the sidewalk and the alley. That part of the lot between the store building and the shed was fenced in as a wagon yard. A fence was built along the sidewalk on the west side of Prescott avenue from the end of the store building to the shed and there was a wagon gate ten feet wide in this fence. The wagon gate was maintained and operated by the defendant and used by himself and his employees in driving in and out of the wagon yard. On April 2, 1914, the plaintiff then eight years of age, was injured by the falling of the wagon gate upon him as he was walking along the sidewalk on Prescott avenue.

While the petition contains five assignments of alleged negligence, the case was finally submitted on but one of these, namely: that “defendant, his agents, servants and employees, were further negligent and careless in driving or attempting to drive through said gateway with a wagon drawn by a horse or horses, before said gate was fully open or when same was not sufficiently open to allow said wagon to pass, and by negligently and carelessly causing or permitting a wheel or other part of said wagon to run against said [500]*500gate or to catch or pull on the same and thereby causing said hangers or one or more of them to leave said track, causing said gate to fall upon said sidewalk and upon plaintiff while he was lawfully on said sidewalk, injuring him as herein stated.”

According to plaintiff’s witnesses the plaintiff, his older brother and a friend, Bennie Kleinberg, passed the defendant’s store on the day that plaintiff met with his injuries, just at a time when a son of the defendant was driving the defendant’s grocery wagon south on Prescott avenue toward the gateway leading into the defendant’s yard. Plaintiff’s brother hopped on to the rear of the delivery wagon while the plaintiff and Kleinberg walked south along the sidewalk on the west side of Prescott avenue. When the wagon reached a point in the street opposite the gate the defendant’s son who was driving the wagon, requested the Klein--berg boy to open the gate; the horse and wagon at that time were facing the gate in a westerly direction. Kleinberg got to the front end of the gate-and started to open it, pushing it back toward the alley, that is pushing the gate toward the south. Plaintiff at that time was on the sidewalk to the north of the gate but while the Kleinberg boy was opening the gate plaintiff walked around .the rear of the wagon and back on to the sidewalk to the south of it. As the wagon was driven into the yard through the gate, the hub of the south rear wheel struck the gate knocking it over. The gate fell upon plaintiff who was on the sidewalk, and injured him.

Bennie Kleinberg as a witness for plaintiff testified: “I pushed the gate; didn’t have it open far ■enough and the horse went in the yard and the hub of the back wheel hit the gate . . . nothing but the striking of the axle made the gate fall; no obstruction, pebbles or rocks on the ground. It moved just as it always did. When the horse went in the driver was still .on the seat and had hold of the lines; saw the hub of the wheel hit the gate when I was by the alley.”

[501]*501Willie Bock, plaintiff’s brother, testified for the plaintiff that the boy driving the wagon asked Bennie Klein-berg to open the gate, which Kleinberg did, pushing the gate toward the alley, “the horse 'went in and the back wheel, the hub of the wagon, drew the gate off. The back wheel on the south side of the wagon. I saw it. Bennie Kleinberg did not shove the gate all the way open. I saw him and I jumped off the wagon before he opened the gate. The horse was then about four feet from the gate, standing still. It started too quick and the hub got caught. It was open about six feet. The gate was still moving when the horse started to go in.”

Dr. John A. Cawood, a witness for plaintiff, testified that he had been a physician for twenty years and a surgeon for ten years practicing in the city of St. Louis; that when he arrived at the home of the plain7 tiff on the afternoon of the day upon which plaintiff met with his injuries he found the boy was suffering very much and it was impossible to make a careful examination. That night he took the boy to. a hospital and took X-Ray photographs of his injuries and then put him under chloroform and tried to reduce the fracture of the leg and found it was impossible to do so; that it was impossible to retain the leg in proper position by means of an ordinary plaster cast or splint. He found an oblique fracture of the femur; also a fracture of the lower pelvic bone and a fracture of the joint where the head of the thigh; bone had been driven into the hip bone and a fracture of the hip bone. The doctor further testified that the fracture through the shaft of the bone was in an oblique direction and about three and one-half to four inches long and that the parts of the bone were drawn past each other and that as the bone was broken the muscles drew the lower portion of the limb up, causing the’ lower parts to pass each other, and as the bone was broken in an oblique manner it was impossible to retain the bones in place with the ordinary dressing. He thereupon made an incision in the boy’s thigh down to the bone and wired [502]*502tlie fragments of the bone together. That the hoy was in the hospital from April 2, 1914, until May 28, 1914, continuously; that the injury was of a character which would bring about very much suffering and pain and that the plaintiff suffered considerably for the first four or five weeks; that as a result of the injury there was a partial shortening of the injured limb, perhaps a quarter of an inch; that, the shortness of the limb, however, would not be apparent but would, adjust itself by a shifting of the pelvis, which would tilt in order to make up the difference; that the leg would undoubtedly be less strong than the other for some time, say for a year or two.

On cross-examination Dr.

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Bluebook (online)
207 S.W. 245, 200 Mo. App. 496, 1918 Mo. App. LEXIS 180, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bock-ex-rel-bock-v-rinderknecht-moctapp-1918.