Katahdin Pulp & Paper Co. v. Peltomaa

156 F. 342, 84 C.C.A. 238, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4699
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedOctober 1, 1907
DocketNo. 697
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 156 F. 342 (Katahdin Pulp & Paper Co. v. Peltomaa) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Katahdin Pulp & Paper Co. v. Peltomaa, 156 F. 342, 84 C.C.A. 238, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4699 (1st Cir. 1907).

Opinion

PUTNAM, Circuit Judge.

Throughout we will speak of the plaintiff below and the defendant below as the plaintiff and defendant. This case was tried to a jury with a verdict for the plaintiff. It was claimed that the plaintiff was employed by the defendant, and, while in that employment, was using a derrick which was supplied by the defendant as a complete derrick, and that one of the guys was weak through age, and therefore broke, so that the derrick fell on the plaintiff and injured him. The court having properly instructed the jury on the question whether this derrick was to be regarded as a completed structure furnished as such by the defendant, the verdict obviated all questions [343]*343•except such as arose out of the conditions by virtue of which it was so to be regarded. Six alleged errors were assigned, but only three are brought to our attention.

The allegations in the declaration of the damages suffered by the plaintiff are as follows:

“That by reason of the said falling of said derrick the said plaintiff was greatly injured on the head and shoulders, by the infliction of a deep and painful wound, his left arm was broken in two places, and he was otherwise greatly injured in other parts of his arms, legs, and sides, and that the said plaintiff suffered great pain in body and mind as the result of said injuries, and is permanently injured, and is unable to perform any manual labor, and is deformed and crippled for life, and has been put to great expense for medical attendance, nursing, and medicine, to the damage of the plaintiff in the sum of $10,000, which shall then and there be made to appear with other due damages.”

There was no allegation of a nervous disturbance, or of any injury to the nervous system. Evidence was offered, and admitted against the objection of the defendant, tending to show that the. external wounds described in the declaration were the cause of certain nervous disturbances and of other internal injuries. Exception was duly saved/but the exception clearly is not sustainable according to the decisions of the courts in Maine, which state composes the district in which the injury was suffered and the judgment rendered. There was enough in what the declaration contained to be equivalent to the ordinary alia enormia; and, without that, inasmuch as the injuries to which the evidence objected to related not only resulted from the wounds described, but naturally resulted therefrom, the thoroughly settled rules of the common law, which are also fully accepted in Maine, determine that no specific description thereof was required. Chitty on Pleading, 411* to 414*.

While the plaintiff was endeavoring to prove that one King, who was employed by the defendant, was a vice principal, and not a fellow servant, a question was put on that topic referring to a date later than that of the injury. This was objected to as irrelevant, and as having a tendency to confuse the jury by reflected light on the question of King’s relations to the defendant at the essential time. This evidence was apparently irrelevant; but it could not have been at all injurious, because the case so shaped itself that it was wholly nonessential whether King was a fellow servant in the ordinary sense of the word, or a vice principal in the ordinary sense of that word. Under the law as ruled in the federal courts, this could not have been an important question in the present aspect of the case. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company v. Baugh, 149 U. S. 368, 13 Sup. Ct. 914, 37 L. Ed. 772; Central Railroad Company v. Keegan, 160 U. S. 259, 16 Sup. Ct. 269, 40 L. Ed. 418; McPeck v. Central Vermont Railroad Company, 79 Fed. 590, 25 C. C. A. 110, decided by us on March 23, 1897; Stevens v. Chamberlain, 100 Fed. 378, 40 C. C. A. 421, decided by us on February 2, 1900.

Another proposition brought to our attention is that the testimony of one of the plaintiff’s witnesses, brought out on the cross-examination by the defendant, in regard to the number of guys suitable for a derrick, should have been stricken out on a motion which the defend[344]*344ant made for that purpose. The record shows that an exception was taken, but it does not show any reason given to the court by the defendant why he claimed that the evidence should be stricken out; nor does it state the grounds of the exception. Therefore the record does not disclose that it was shown to the Circuit Court that in any aspect of the case the evidence would have been improper even if put in by the plaintiff. The objection and the exception are insufficient under our practice, and all the more so in view of the fact that the evidence was put in by the defendant itself, so that the question whether it should be stricken out or not was prima facie one for the the discretion of the court at nisi prius.

The remaining question relates to the law as to the nature and extent of the care required from the defendant, growing out of the fact that the derrick was furnished by it to the plaintiff and his fellow workmen as a completed structure for use by them. There is no doubt as to the rule of the federal courts on this topic. It has been rehearsed again and again, and as correctly as anywhere in Hough v. Railway Company, 100 U. S. 213, 218, 25 L. Ed. 612, as follows :

“To guard against misapplication of these principles, we should say .that the corporation is not to be held as guaranteeing or warranting the absolute safety, under all circumstances, or the perfection in all of its parts, of the machinery or apparatus which may be provided for the use of employes. Its duty in -that respect to its employés is discharged when, but only when, its agents whose business it is to supply such instrumentalities exercise due care as well in their purchase originally, as in keeping and maintaining them in such condition as to be reasonably and adequately safe for use by employés.”

There is no claim that this rule was not given by the learned judge of the Circuit Court, and the question before us arises out of the fact that he dropped into an expression which the defendant says is not consistent with the rule, so that it also says that the whole tended to confuse the jury. Thus the defendant seeks to bring itself within Bank of Metropolis v. New England Bank, 6 How. 212, 226, 12 L. Ed. 409, to the effect that, where the instructions are involved, a new trial will be ordered; and, also, within Armour & Co. v. Russell, 144 Fed. 614, 615, 75 C. C. A. 239, decided by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on March 21, 1906, where it is stated that the vice of a wrong rule in a charge is not extracted by the fact that the right rule is also given, “because,” as the court says, “it is impossible to tell by which rule the jury was governed.”

This objection, however, melts away on a careful examination of the record. The defendant admits that the correct rule was given five times, while it claims that the alleged incorrect rule was also given six times. It will be found, however, that what the defendant claims to be the incorrect rule was accompanied every time with what is admitted to be the true rule, and that finally thé true rule was given absolutely and unqualified by anything else. We will give the first example of what the defendant rests on in this connection.

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Related

Bishop v. Wight
221 F. 392 (Eighth Circuit, 1915)

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Bluebook (online)
156 F. 342, 84 C.C.A. 238, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4699, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/katahdin-pulp-paper-co-v-peltomaa-ca1-1907.