Home/Missouri Court of Appeals/King v. Ringling

King v. Ringling

130 S.W. 482, 145 Mo. App. 285, 1910 Mo. App. LEXIS 454
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 28, 1910
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 130 S.W. 482 (King v. Ringling) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
King v. Ringling, 130 S.W. 482, 145 Mo. App. 285, 1910 Mo. App. LEXIS 454 (Mo. Ct. App. 1910).

Opinion

JOHNSON, J.

This action is to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of defendants. A trial before a jury resulted in a verdict and judgment for plaintiff in the sum of six hundred dollars, and the cause is before us on the appeal of defendants.

The injury occurred in the city of Maryville in the afternoon of September 18, 1905, at a performance of a traveling show of which defendants were the proprietors. Plaintiff and her husband .had paid the admission fee charged by defendants and were occupying “general admission” seats in the “main tent,” when a violent storm wrecked one end of the tent and threw the spectators of the performance into a panic. In the general rush to escape, plaintiff was struck by a falling board or timber and one of her legs was broken. The issue of negligence presented by the pleadings and evidence is whether or not the supports of the tent were weakened by the servants of -defendants in preparation to break camp during the performance in the circus tent and shortly before the storm broke. Plaintiff conten de that such negligence was the proximate cause of the in jury, while defendants deny that the supports wew weakened and contend that the storm that wrecked the tent Avas so extraordinary in its suddenness and violence that it should be classed in law as an act of God.

[288]*288There is no contention that the tent and its supports and fastenings were defective in construction or that any part of the structure and its connections were out of repair, nor is any point made against the manner in which the tent was erected. Plaintiff founds her cause of action on the sole fact, testified to by á number of her witnesses, that after the performance began, alternate stakes at one end of the tent were pulled by a gang of workmen operating a stake pulling machine. The existence of this fact is denied by the witnesses of defendants who say, in the first place, that it would have been impossible to pull stakes before the canvas had been lowered to the ground and, in the second place, that alternate stakes to which certain auxiliary guy ropes were attached could have been withdrawn from use without sensibly diminishing the strength of the actual supports of the tent and since the evidence of plaintiff does not show to the contrary, the presumption should be indulged that only those stakes were pulled, if any, which were not essential to the stability of the tent.

A thorough description of the tent is essential to a proper understanding of the points in controversy. Below in Fig. 1, is a reproduction of a photograph of a perfect model of the tent. Fig. 2, exhibits a detail of the- supporting ropes and the stakes to which they were attached.

[289]*289

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Bluebook (online)
130 S.W. 482, 145 Mo. App. 285, 1910 Mo. App. LEXIS 454, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/king-v-ringling-moctapp-1910.