Borden v. Pelipchyik

243 S.W. 1109, 1922 Tex. App. LEXIS 1228
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 17, 1922
DocketNo. 8210. [fn*]
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 243 S.W. 1109 (Borden v. Pelipchyik) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Borden v. Pelipchyik, 243 S.W. 1109, 1922 Tex. App. LEXIS 1228 (Tex. Ct. App. 1922).

Opinions

GRAVES, J.

The following concededlj correct statement of the nature and result of this suit is taken from appellant’s brief:

“Appellee, Konstanti Pelipchyk, a Russian immigrant, sued appellant, A.' P. Borden, in *1110 the district court- of Wharton county, Tex., November 14, 1914, for personal injuries sustained by appellee in a gin of appellant on October 23, 1913. The ease was submitted to the jury upon' special issues, and judgment was rendered against appellant for $7,500, from which judgment appellant has taken an appeal, with su-persedeas' bond.
“The following is a concise statement of the case:
“Appellee was in the employ of appellant as a general farm laborer on the latter’s plantation, consisting of about 2,600 acres of land, in Wharton county, Tex., which plantation was managed by appellant’s brother and vice principal, Prank Borden. Appellee was 17 years old, and wholly inexperienced in any character of work, save farm and ordinary labor. In the early afternoon of the day of the accident, ap-pellee had been ordered by Prank Borden to go, with two other men, named Carela and Pardi, respectively, and take up the floor of a cotton seed house or room. At appellant’s gin there were a downstairs and upstairs gin room, each 20x26 feet, the upstairs room containing the gin stands and presses, and the lower room the operating machinery.
“To the east and north of these two gin rooms were shed annexes, one an east shed, 16x36 feet, being the engine room, only separated from the gin rooms by a line of open studding, and the other, a north shed, 44x32 feet, which was constituted of a 24-foot passageway, and across the passageway this seed house or room, 20x32 feet. The roofs of these east and north sheds, respectively, joined the east and north walls of the gin rooms about 12 feet above the upstairs floor line, and there was a door and window in the downstairs gin room, and a window upstairs, all opening on the passageway, as did the only door of the seed room. Appel-lee was injured by being caught in the revolving shaft, in the downstairs gin room, and his right arm was jerked off near the shoulder.
“There were two main fact issues in this case:
“First. Whether, while appellee was at work with the two other man in the seed room, at the unfinished task of taking up the floor, Prank Borden came to the gin, and, at the request of the engineer, Erofay, ordered appellee to leave the seed house and go over to the gin.
“Second. Whether appellee, at the time he was injured, was actually working, and while at this work, if any, of cleaning up the downstairs gin room, and while stooping down near the shaft and scooping up cotton seed from the floor into a sack, appellee was caught by the revolving gin shaft, or whether appellee, at the time he was injured, was not at work at all, but, when caught, was merely pranking or fooling with the gin shaft.
“On the first issue appellee testified that, while he was working, taking up the floor in the seed house, Prank Borden and a. Russian, named Roman, came on horseback to the gin, and the gin engineer, one Erofay, asked Prank Borden to let him have another man at the gin, and that Prank Borden then ordered him, ap-pellee, to leave the seed house and go oyer to the gin; that Erofay wanted him. And ap-pellee-further testified that when he went over to the gin Erofay put him at work, in the doing of which work he was, in a very short time, injured.
“Prank Borden denied that he was present at the gin at any time that day until after appellee was injured, and denied giving any order that afternoon to appellee for any character of work except the original task of taking up the seed house floor.
“The men at the gin that day were an engineer, one Erofay, and a pressman, Leven or Lewko, who were upstairs, a man named Eli, who was somewhere downstairs, and appellee, Konstanti, and the two men in the seed house, Carela ¿nd Pardi. Appellee was the sole witness in his own behalf. Erofay, the engineer, did not testify in the ease, nor did Roman. These men left the United States for Russia in March, 1914. Pardi die'd in appellant’s employ in July, 1916, prior to the trial of this case upon the facts. Lewko, the pressman, and Carela, testified by deposition for the appellant. The man called Eli disappeared about Christmas, 1913, and was not a witness in the case, although two statements of his, one testified to by the witness Carela, and the other by the witness Lewko, were in evidence as res geste.
“Appellee testified, on the second issue, as to how he was injured, that he was stooping down near the shaft with his right side to the shaft, and the 'sack on his right arm and his face turned away from the shaft, scooping up cotton seed off the floor with his hands, putting same in the sack, the sack was caught by the shaft, and he was jerked into the shaft, and his right arm torn off. Appellee stated Eli was at work in the downstairs gin room when he, appellee, first went into the room, but that Eli had left the room prior to the accident, Carela testified that Eli said shortly after the accident that ho did not see the accident, but that he had told appellee several times not to lay his hands on the shaft. Lewko testified that Eli said he had told appellee several times not to lay sacks on the shaft. That he (Eli) did not see the accident, because, as Eli said, he had turned around to pick up his shovel when appellee was caught by the shaft. Carela further testified that after appellee was injured he walked with him, holding his hand, from the gin over to appellee’s house, and on the way over appellee said he was fooling with the shaft, and said nothing about a sack. Appel-lee testified that he was unconscious from the time he was injured. Appellee’s right arm was torn off near the shoulder.
“The gin shaft which caught appellee was a smooth shaft, with no set screws therein, except one at the extreme east end of the shaft. This shaft was about 2½ inches in diameter, was about IS feet long, and was situate east and west, and ran in brackets, extending about four inches from posts, and was driven by belts and pulleys operated by a 40 horse power gasoline engine. The shaft was 35½ inches above the floor, and turned from north to south, at 210 revolutions per minute. This downstairs gin room, including the east shed or engine room separated from the gin room proper by a line of open studding, was 36 feet square. It had two doors, each 2 feet by 7. One of these doors was in the north wall- of the shed annex, about 8 feet from the east corner, and the other in the south wall of the shed, about same distance from the south corner. There were two windows in the engine room shed, one in the north and one in the south wall, and three windows in the room proper, in all seven *1111 openings in the 36-foot room. The windows were each 2 feet 6 by 5 feet 6, four light windows. Also the line of open studding, between the downstairs gin room proper and the shed engine room, extended 12 feet above the upstairs floor, and the space was boarded up only 4 feet from the floor, and this arrangement let the light down from above, and the upstairs gin room itself had six openings, four windows and two doors.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
243 S.W. 1109, 1922 Tex. App. LEXIS 1228, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/borden-v-pelipchyik-texapp-1922.