Hunt v. Illinois Central Railroad

71 N.E. 195, 163 Ind. 106, 1904 Ind. LEXIS 121
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedJune 8, 1904
DocketNo. 20,360
StatusPublished

This text of 71 N.E. 195 (Hunt v. Illinois Central Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hunt v. Illinois Central Railroad, 71 N.E. 195, 163 Ind. 106, 1904 Ind. LEXIS 121 (Ind. 1904).

Opinion

Gillett, J.

Appellant sued appellee to recover for the hoard and room rent of one Hoel Slusser, an employe of appellee, who had been injured upon its road, during the time that he was confined to the house as the result of the [107]*107injury sustained by him and the operation which followed, and for the board and room rent of the father, mother, wife, and sister of said Slusser, who attended upon him as nurses at different periods during such time. The complaint was in three paragraphs. In each of the paragraphs the charge is that appellant was employed to perform such service by one James Borders, a freight conductor in the employ of appellee, and additional facts are charged relative to a claim of an emergency. There was a trial by jury, and a general verdict in favor of appellant. Upon answers returned by the jury to special interrogatories, the court rendered judgment in favor of appellee, notwithstanding the general verdict. The propriety of this ruling is here in question.

Eeduced to narrative form, the findings of the jury are in substance as follows: March 25, 1901, Uoel Slusser was, and for about five months immediately prior thereto had been, a brakeman on one of appellee’s freight-trains, rtmning in and out of Switz City. At the time of his injury hereinafter mentioned, and during all of the time aforesaid, Slusser boarded and roomed at appellant’s hotel in Switz City. He had many friends and acquaintances in said town. On the day aforesaid, while acting as a brakeman on said train, one of his legs was crushed, necessitating amputation. He received said injury in the city.of Linton. He was taken from there to Switz City, some six miles further east, at his request, and upon his assigned reason that he had friends and acquaintances there. He gave no other reason for his request. During all of the time'that he was in Linton he was perfectly conscious. Linton was at that time a city of 3,000 inhabitants. It had a good hotel, skilful physicians and surgeons, and ample facilities for treating, boarding, and earing for Slusser while he was suffering from his injury. Appellee had a surgeon there on said day, who was competent to treat said injury, and appellee was on said day ready and willing to have said injury treated by said surgeon, so far as any immediate and [108]*108existing emergency required it. Slusser would have been left at Linton to be treated by Dr. Sherwood if he (Slusser) had not requested to be taken to Switz Oity. James Borders was the conductor of said train, and he and Dr. Sherwood accompanied Slusser to Switz City. The latter did not request to be taken to appellant’s hotel. The only authority or employment ever given appellant was contained in the following request made by said conductor of appellant : “Can we get a room to put Slusser in ? He has had his foot mashed, and will have to have it cut off. The doctors are here to do the work.” There was time and opportunity after Slusser received his injury, and before he left Linton on said day, for the conductor to telegraph to, and communicate with, the division superintendent and with the general officers of said appellee; and during such .time communication was had between said conductor and appellee’s superintendent relating to said injury, but the jury do not find further concerning such communication. Other facts are found which we incline to think cut off any possible theory of a ratification of Borders’ act, but in view' of the theory of each paragraph of the complaint' that it was Borders, in his capacity as conductor, who made the contract, we need not consider as to the possibility that the general verdict might have been rendered as the result of evidence showing a ratification.

The first and leading case upon the subject of the authority of the conductor of a railroad train to employ surgical aid in an emergency for an employe of the company who has been injured by such train is Terre Haute, etc., R. Co. v. McMurray (1884), 98 Ind. 358, 49 Am. Rep. 752. So far as concerns the questions as to the duty of the company and the power of the conductor in such circumstances, the decision mentioned foreclosed discussion in this court. Our duty in this case is but to determine whether a state of facts has been presented which brings the case within the above authority. It was said on the petition for a rehearing in [109]*109that case: “We did not decide that a corporation was responsible generally for medical or surgical attention given to a sick or wounded servant; on the contrary, we were careful to limit our decision to surgical services rendei*ed upon an urgent exigency, where immediate attention was demanded to save life or prevent great injury. We held that the liability arose with the emergency, and with it expired. We did hold that where the conductor was the highest representative of the corporation on the ground, and there was an emergency requiring immediate action, he was authorized to employ a surgeon to give such attention as the exigency of the occasion made imperiously necessary; but we did not hold that the conductor had a general authority to employ a surgeon where there was no emergency, or where there was a superior agent on the ground.”

It was declared in Louisville, etc., R. Co. v. McVay (1884), 98 Ind. 391, 49 Am. Rep. 770, that the presumption was against the authority of a subordinate railroad employe to engage a hotel-keeper to care for and nurse a servant of the company who had been injured in its employ, there being no emergency demanding immediate action.

The complaint in the case of Terre Haute, etc., R. Co. v. Brown (1886), 107 Ind. 336, was for professional services rendered as an assistant to Dr. McMurray.in performing the operation which gave rise to the case first above mentioned. In holding that the plaintiff in the Brown case could not recover, this court said: “The question is, can the judgment be maintained upon the facts stated? That it can not, is, in the view we take of the case, too clear for debate. If it be conceded that such an overwhelming emergency might arise as would create a necessity for immediate action in order to save life, or prevent great bodily suffering, and that under such circumstances a state of affairs might exist, in the presence of which one employe would have the implied power to bind the employer, in his absence, for necessary medical or surgical aid bestowed on another [110]*110employe who sustained an injury, it by no means follows that the appellee was entitled to recover upon the facts in this case. If the emergency was such that we must assume that an imperious necessity existed, under which the conductor, from considerations of humanity, had authority to employ Dr. McMurray, at the expense of the company, we can not indulge the further presumption that it was necessary that he should have the power to authorize Dr. McMurray to employ other surgeons at the company’s expense.” To the same general effect is Louisville, etc., R. Co v. Smith (1889), 121 Ind. 353, 6 L. R. A. 320.

In Ohio, etc., R. Co. v. Early (1894), 141 Ind. 73, 28 L. R. A. 546, there was an attempt to recover from the appellant therein on the ground that it had negligently failed to furnish medical and surgical assistance to one of its employes who had received a dangerous injury while in the line of his employment. It appeared from the evidence that temporary aásistance had been given to the man at the place where the injury occurred. lie was then placed upon a train to be conveyed to North Vernon, where preparations had been made to treat him.

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Related

Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad v. McMurray
98 Ind. 358 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1884)
Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis Railway Co. v. McVay
98 Ind. 391 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1884)
Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad v. Brown
8 N.E. 218 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1886)
Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Railway Co. v. Smith
22 N.E. 775 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1889)
Davis v. Talbot
36 N.E. 1098 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1894)
Ohio & Mississippi Railway Co. v. Early
28 L.R.A. 546 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1895)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
71 N.E. 195, 163 Ind. 106, 1904 Ind. LEXIS 121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hunt-v-illinois-central-railroad-ind-1904.