Indiana, Bloomington & Western Railway Co. v. Dailey

10 N.E. 631, 110 Ind. 75, 1887 Ind. LEXIS 10
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 8, 1887
DocketNo. 11,805
StatusPublished
Cited by57 cases

This text of 10 N.E. 631 (Indiana, Bloomington & Western Railway Co. v. Dailey) 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
Indiana, Bloomington & Western Railway Co. v. Dailey, 10 N.E. 631, 110 Ind. 75, 1887 Ind. LEXIS 10 (Ind. 1887).

Opinion

Howk, J.

In this case, appellee sued the appellant in a complaint of six paragraphs, to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by him, as alleged, while ift appellant’s' service as a brakeman on orie of its freight trains. The suit was commenced in the Montgomery Circuit Court and was there put at issue by appellant’s answer, in general denial. On appellant’s application, the venue of the cause was then changed to the Fountain Circuit Court. There, appellee withdrew the first paragraph of his complaint, and the issues joined - upon the remaining five paragraphs were then tried by a jury, and a verdict was returned for appellant, the defendant below; but, on appellee’s motion, the verdict was set aside and a new trial awarded. The second trial of the cause resulted in a verdict for appellee, assessing his damages in the sum of $5,000. Over appellant’s motions for a venire de novo, for judgment on the special findings of the jury notwithstanding their general verdict, and for a new trial, the court rendered judgment on the general verdict.

The first error, of which appellant’s counsel complain in [77]*77argument, is the overruling of the demurrer to the several paragraphs of appellee’s complaint, remaining in the record.

The point is made by appellee’s counsel and earnestly insisted upon, that appellant’s demurrer is to the complaint as an entirety and does not question the sufficiency of each paragraph separately; and that, therefore, if any one paragraph was sufficient to withstand the demurrer, the ruling complained of was correct and would not authorize a reversal of the judgment below, even though all the other paragraphs were clearly bad. Omitting the venue and title of the cause, appellant’s demurrer reads as follows: “ The defendant demurs separately to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth paragraphs of the plaintiff’s complaint in the above entitled cause, for the reason that none of said paragraphs states facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action.” It may be conceded that, in the early decisions of this court under our civil code, demurrers, very similar in form to the one above quoted, were held to be joint and not several demurrers. But of late years, in harmony with the requirements of section 376, R. S. 1881, that “In the construction of a pleading, for the purpose of determining its effect, its allegations shall be liberally construed, with a view to substantial justice between the parties,” we have repeatedly held, and correctly so, we think, that demurrers, substantially the same in form as the one above copied, were several as well as joint, and would call in question the sufficiency of each, as well as all, of the paragraphs of the pleadings to which they. were addressed. Stone v. State, ex rel., 75 Ind. 235; Stribling v. Brougher, 79 Ind. 328; Carver v. Carver, 97 Ind. 497.

In their brief of this cause, appellant’s counsel first insist that it was error to overrule the demurrer to the fourth paragraph of appellee’s complaint. In this fourth paragraph, the appellee alleged that, on the 12th day of October, 1881, and for a long time theretofore, he had been in the employment of appellant, as its brakeman, on its railroad, in Montgomery county, Indiana; that, on the day last named, ap[78]*78pellee was injured and crippled for life, and forever disabled, from working for a living, by the gross negligence of appellant’s agent and servant, an engineer in plaintiff’s employ; ” that said engineer was well known at the time by appellant to be wholly incompetent and reckless, and without prudence or caution in the performance of his duties as an engineer or engine-driver; that said engineer and appellee were and had been assigned to duty on the same train, to run and manage the same, appellee as brakeman and coupler, and said engineer as engine-driver thereof; that while appellee, in accordance with his duties as ordered by the proper conductor of such train, was attempting to uncouple two of the cars in such train, in Montgomery county, at the time before stated, said engineer suddenly, and without any warning or notice to appellee, violently and with gross negligence of duty, backed said train upon appellee and so crushed him that he was injured as aforesaid, without any negligence of the appellee, who was then and there in the just performance of his duty to appellant. Wherefore appellee was damaged in the sum of ten thousand dollars, etc.

It will be observed that, in the foregoing paragraph, appellee alleged that he was injured “by the gross negligence of defendant’s agent and servant, an engineer in plaintiff’s employ.” It is claimed by appellant’s counsel, that the last three words in the allegation quoted, to the effect that the engineer, through whose negligence the plaintiff said that he was injured, was at the time “in plaintiff’s employ,” completely nullify and destroy the force of the precedent statement that such engineer was “ defendant’s agent and servant.” We must decline, however, to adopt counsel’s view of the-allegation quoted. The use of the- word plaintiff’s, instead of the word defendant’s, in the closing statement of such allegation, is so palpably a merely clerical error that we would not notice it, if appellant’s counsel did not insist here, in argument, that this clerical misprision of itself vitiated the fourth paragraph of complaint, and rendered it bad on demur[79]*79rer. Merely clerical mistakes, such as the use of one word or one name for another, where, as in this case, there is and can be no possible room for doubt as to which one-of two words or names the pleader'intended to use, will not and ought not to vitiate the pleading, in any court, under the statutory rule that “ its allegations shall be liberally construed, with a view to substantial justice between the parties.” Section 376, R. S. 1881; Landon v. White, 101 Ind. 249.

"We are of opinion that the court clearly erred in overruling appellant’s demurrer to the fourth paragraph of appellee’s complaint, the substance of which paragraph we have heretofore given. It is abundantly shown by the averments of this paragraph of complaint, that the appellee and the nameless engineer in appellant’s employ, by whose gross negligence he said that he was injured, were fellow servants or co-employees of the same common master, engaged in the same general business. In such a case the general rule, as declared in many of our decisions, undoubtedly is, that the master is not liable for injuries sustained by one servant or employee, solely by or through the negligence of another servant or employee of the same master, engaged in the same general business. “ Each employee engaged with others in the service of a common master takes upon himself the liability to injury resulting from the negligence of his co-employees. The hazard is incident to the nature of the employment into which he enters, and in respect to which the master is not an insurer, in the absence of an express contract to that effect. Nor is the master liable by the.fact, that the employee receiving the injury is inferior in grade of employment to the party by whose negligence the injury is caused, if both are employed in the same general business, or in other words, ‘if the services of each in his particular sphere or department are directed to the accomplishment of the same general end.”’ Columbus, etc., R. W. Co. v. Arnold, 31 Ind. 174. To the same effect, substantially, are the following more recent decisions of this court: Sullivan v. Toledo,

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10 N.E. 631, 110 Ind. 75, 1887 Ind. LEXIS 10, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/indiana-bloomington-western-railway-co-v-dailey-ind-1887.