Houston Car Wheel & MacHine Co. v. Murray

227 S.W. 1109, 1921 Tex. App. LEXIS 651
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 10, 1921
DocketNo. 455.
StatusPublished

This text of 227 S.W. 1109 (Houston Car Wheel & MacHine Co. v. Murray) 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
Houston Car Wheel & MacHine Co. v. Murray, 227 S.W. 1109, 1921 Tex. App. LEXIS 651 (Tex. Ct. App. 1921).

Opinion

HIGGINS, J.

This was an action for damages caused by personal injury brought by Murray against his employer, the appellant. Verdict was returned and judgment rendered in his favor for $10,000, and defendant appealed.

The judgment was first affirmed by this court. Upon rehearing it was reversed and remanded. 181 S. W. 241.

The Supreme Court granted a writ of error. The case was referred to Section B of the Commission of Appeals. That court rendered its opinion, thus announcing its final conclusion:

“We are of the opinion that under the faqts of this case the evidence raised the issue of the duty of the master to exercise reasonable care to keep the place where Murray was working safe; also the duty to warn him of the contemplated movement of the crane, that he might have an opportunity of taking steps to avoid the consequences of the danger arising therefrom; that these duties are nondelegable; that they were incumbent upon the master. Houston Light & Power Co. v. Conley (Civ. App.) 171 S. W. 561.
“On rehearing the Court of Civil Appeals did not pass upon the sufficiency of the evidence, or hold that the judgment of the trial court is against the weight of the evidence, but erroneously applied the law to the facts.
“We therefore recommend that the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals be reversed, and the cause remanded to that court for further proceeding in accordance with this opinion.”
(Com. App.) 222 S. W. 219.

The Supreme Court thereupon made this notation and order:

“We agree with the conclusion of the Commission of Appeals that there was evidence warranting the finding of the jury that the plaintiff’s injury was due to the breach by the defendant of a nondelegable duty, and rest tie decision upon that ground.
“This holding makes immaterial the question as to whether the foreman was a vice principal, and we express no opinion upon that question.
“The judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals is reversed, and the case remanded to that court.”
222 S. W. 220.

The case is now before us again for further proceeding in accordance with the order of the Supreme Court. Upon the resubmission in this court both parties have filed written arguments. The pleadings, evidence, and findings of the jury are stated in the original opinion of this court, to which reference is made.

We supplement the evidence these stated with the following excerpts from the testimony:

Murray testified:.,

“When I began to work in the building, the first work I did was on the west end, the north side. * * * My work consisted of putting up these wires and putting the lights on it for lighting purposes. The portion of the building where I was injured was on the south side near *1110 the east end. If I remember correctly, it was on the morning of the day I was hurt when I passed oyer from the north to the south' side. Mr. Brown had told me where he wanted the lights at the south side of the building. It was several days previous that he told me that, one or two days. I was injured between 3:30 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and it was in the early part of that morning that I got down to the south side of the building to begin work, probably along about 8 o’clock; it was just after we began work; I do not know just the hour. I did see Mr. Brown there that morn-' ing, and spoke to him, bid him ‘good morning.’ * * * I was not an experienced man in wiring; I was not an electrician; the first work I ever did was in that shop. * * * There was no other method by which to get up to these lights except by the use of a ladder; you could not get up without a ladder; that was the only manner in which the work could be done. * * * I don’t know how long I had been up on the ladder at the time I started to fall, a few minutes, I guess, three or four minutes. * * * When I was up on the ladder there was nothing to have kept people down at the bottom from seeing me; they could have seen me if they had looked, I suppose. * * * There was nothing to have kept them from seeing me. * * * What started me falling was a sudden shaking there that caused me to overbalance and fall backwards, and I would have fallen if I hadn’t made a grab and landed on the rail. I did not see the crane until it was on top of my hand. * * * Before that time, I did not notice or feel any shaking while I was working upon that ladder.”

Again:

“I did not know, at the time I had my ladder against this post and was doing this work, that the movement of that crane along there loaded with metal would shake the building. At the time I put my ladder upon the post to do the work I did not know that the washers and bolts attaching the two posts together were loose; neither did I know, when I went upon the ladder, that the bottom of the post was soft and worm-eaten, as I have said it was, and that pieces of the post could be dug out with my finger. Neither did I know, when I went upon the ladder, that I would be exposed to any danger of that kind. I did not think, when I put my ladder up there to go upon the building, that it was unsafe; I had every reason to believe that it was stable and safe, or ought to be; I didn’t know. No one ever warned me that it was not safe and stable; no one informed me about it. * ■ * * I did not know, and had no reason to believe, that they were about to move that crane or were going to move it at the time I. was injured; I didn’t know anything about it.”

Further:

“I did not have any authority to tell the men working down there to look out for me. * * * The person whom I expected to instruct the men in the foundry to not run the crane upon me or to give me warning if they were going to run the crane was Mr. Brown; I expected him to do that because he was foreman of the foundry. * * * I expected Mr. Brown, if he went away, to leave some provision to some one to look out for my safety, to inform me, to warn me. It would not have been possible for me to do my work that I had been directed by the foreman in the iron foundry to do and also to keep a line on what everybody else was doing in the foundry; I couldn’t do both. Neither could I stand upon the ladder and fix those cleats and do the wiring and also take note of what the moulders were doing, and when they got everything ready to move the crane; it would have been impossible for me to have done so in doing my work.
“I did not hear' that crane as it approached me, nor did I see it start; neither did I know it was close to me when I threw my hand on the rail. If I had not thrown my hand on the rail, I would have fallen.”
“If I had known that crane was going to be moved down that track, I would not have been in the position I was occupying. I would have come down from there because it was dangerous; there would be danger or possible danger of falling into a pot of red-hot metal if I would fall. I had never been an employé in the iron foundry department, and I did not know and understand the usual course and manner in which the work was done over there in that department.”

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Related

Houston Car Wheel & MacHine Co. v. Murray
181 S.W. 241 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1915)
Houston Lighting Power, 1905 v. Conley
171 S.W. 561 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1914)
Murray v. Houston Car Wheel & Machine Co.
222 S.W. 219 (Texas Commission of Appeals, 1920)

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Bluebook (online)
227 S.W. 1109, 1921 Tex. App. LEXIS 651, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/houston-car-wheel-machine-co-v-murray-texapp-1921.