Broadway Coal Mining Co. v. Robinson

150 S.W. 1000, 150 Ky. 707, 1912 Ky. LEXIS 986
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedNovember 22, 1912
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 150 S.W. 1000 (Broadway Coal Mining Co. v. Robinson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Broadway Coal Mining Co. v. Robinson, 150 S.W. 1000, 150 Ky. 707, 1912 Ky. LEXIS 986 (Ky. Ct. App. 1912).

Opinion

Opinion of the Court by

Judge Miller —

Affirming.

The appellee, Robinson, was injured on August 16, 1910, while employed as a “shooter” in appellant’s coal mine. He sued the company for damages, joining with it Hugh Chumbley, its boss driver, and John Jones, its mine foreman, and recovered a verdict for $5,125 against the company alone; and from a judgment upon that verdict the company prosecutes this appeal.

The complaint is that the company permitted the entry roof of its mine to become unsafe, and that Jones and Chumbley failed to have it made safe, although they knew its defective condition. Within the time allowed by statute, the company filed a petition to remove the case to the United States Circuit Court, upon the ground that Chumbley and Jones had been fraudulently joined with the company as defendants, for the purpose of preventing the removal. The State court denied the petition for removal; whereupon, the company filed a copy of the record in the Federal court, where the case was tried, and resulted in a peremptory instruction and judgment for the defendant. Upon a motion for a new trial, however, the federal judge set aside the judgment in that court, and remanded the case to the State court. Upon the trial in the State court the plaintiff recovered the verdict for $5,125 above referred to.

Five grounds are relied upon for a reversal; (1) that the State court erred in refusing to remove the case to the Federal court; (2) that the court erred in refusing to peremptorily instruct the jury to find for the defendant; (3) that the court erred in instructing the jury that it could find for the individual defendants and asrainst [709]*709fcbe corporation; (4) that the verdict is inconsistent in •that it found against the corporation, and for the individual defendants; and, (5) that the verdict is excessive.

The facts are substantially as follows: Bobinson went to the mine on the day before the accident and sought employment, which he obtained through Jones, the mine foreman. As the miners were required to furnish their own tools, Bobinson bought a part of his tools from Davis, who had been at work in the mine, but was then sick, and laid off, and then went to the company and bought the remainder of the tools which were necessary for the prosecution of his work. Bobinson was to work in the 4th west entry, while the tools which he bought from Davis were in the 4th east entry where Davis had left them. He carried the tools which he had bought from the company to the mouth of the mine, and had a tag placed on them showing to what point in the mine they should go. It was the custom of the mine for the company to have the heavy tools, such as the drilling machines, placed in a car and hauled to the point desired by the miner, the loading of the tools on the car to be done by the miner himself. Jones told Bobinson to report to Chumbley and he would have the tools delivered in the 4th west entry. This was all done the day before the accident. On the morning of the accident, Bobinson and his fellow-laborer Beck, went to the room where they were to work, and without waiting for their tools to reach them, they borrowed a shovel and went to work cleaning up some coal that had been left there. After they had worked in this way for perhaps two hours, and finding they could do no more work without their tools, they started back to the mouth of the mine to see why the tools had not been sent to them. They had gone only a short distance, when they met Chumbley, the boss driver, who asked them where they were going. In answer, they told Chumbley they were going to inquire after their tools, and asked him why he had not sent them. Bobinson further told Chumbley of the purchase of the tools from Davis, and inquired how he could get those tools from Davis’ room; whereupon Chumbley pointed the way to Davis’ room, and told Bobinson and Beck to go and get the tools. Davis’ room was more than a hundred yards further down the main entry from the room in which Bobinson and Beck had been working. After they had gone a short dis[710]*710tance, the slate roof of the main entry fell upon Robinson, breaking his right leg in two places, and crushing his left leg to such an extent that amputation became necessary. This was Robinson’s first appearance in the mine.

1. First, as to appellant’s right to remove the case to the Federal Court. Appellant contends, and it may be conceded, that the Federal Judge remanded the case to the State court upon the authority of Enos v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Company, 189 Fed., 342, holding that the negligence of the appellant was predicated solely upon the negligence of the individual defendants, Chumbley and Jones; and, since it further appears from the deposition of counsel for appellee read on the motion to remand, that he made Jones and Chumbley defendants in order to hold jurisdiction in the State court, the joinder was fraudulent, leaving nothing to prevent the removal. It is a sufficient answer to this contention, that the motive for making Jones and Chumbley defendants, can in no way affect appellee’s right to make them defendants, if the facts justified it. Appellee may have thought a judgment against Jones and Chumbley would be worthless, and that it would, from that point of view, be useless to join them as defendants; nevertheless, if the injury to Robinson was brought about by the negligence of Jones and Chumbley, they were proper parties defendant, and appellee had a perfect right to join them with the appellant, even though, his purpose in so doing may have been to retain jurisdiction in the State court. It is a wéll settled rule of law that the motive of a litigant cannot affect his legal rights, since his rights are to be determined by the facts and the law, regardless of his good or bad motive in asserting them.

Furthermore, the contention that the appellee was trifling with the court in joining Jones and Chumbley as defendants is not sustained by the evidence. Chumbley unquestionably was guilty of negligence in directing Robinson to go after Davis’ tools, if the testimony of Robinson is to be believed. We do not understand it is now claimed that the State court was warranted in removing this case to the Federal Court when the petition for removal was originally filed, since the petition for removal alleged fraudulent joinder in general terms, which were denied, and no proof was taken in the [711]*711State court. As the petition, therefore, stated a joint canse of action against the company and Jones and Chumbley, the State court and the Federal court were equally right in holding, on the showing made, that the jurisdiction was in the State court. With the record in this condition the case went to trial in the State court without the petition for removal ever having been renewed, or any motion made for that purpose. If, after hearing the evidence in the State court, appellant conceived that the evidence sustained its charge of fraudulent joinder, it was its duty to renew the motion to remove, and tender its bond anew; and, having failed to do so, it waived any right it may then have had to remove the case to the Federal Court.

In Northern Pacific R. R. Co. v. Austin, 135 U. S., 315, the court said:

“Nothing is better settled than that, to enable us to take jurisdiction on the ground of the denial by a State court of a right claimed under a statute of the United States, the record must show that the right was specially set up or claimed at the proper time and in the proper way, and that the decision was against the right so set up or claimed. Spies v. Illinois, 123 U. S., 131, 8 Sup. Ct.

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150 S.W. 1000, 150 Ky. 707, 1912 Ky. LEXIS 986, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/broadway-coal-mining-co-v-robinson-kyctapp-1912.