Lindsey v. Harlan E. Moore & Co.

297 N.E.2d 8, 11 Ill. App. 3d 432, 1973 Ill. App. LEXIS 2452
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMay 24, 1973
Docket11737
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 297 N.E.2d 8 (Lindsey v. Harlan E. Moore & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lindsey v. Harlan E. Moore & Co., 297 N.E.2d 8, 11 Ill. App. 3d 432, 1973 Ill. App. LEXIS 2452 (Ill. Ct. App. 1973).

Opinion

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE CRAVEN

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal by third-party defendant Harlan E. Moore & Company, herein called Moore, from a judgment in favor of third-party plaintiff, Dean Evans Company, herein called Evans, against Moore, for $22,000 — being the amount of a judgment in favor of Harold Lindsey against Evans — and from the denial by the trial court of Moore’s post-trial motion.

The original action was brought by Harold Lindsey, an employee of Moore, for personal injuries he sustained in a fall from a scaffold, based upon violation of the Illinois Structural Work Act. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 48, pars. 60, 69.

Evans was awarded a contract to do certain construction work for the United States Air Force at Chanute Air Base in Champaign County. Evans subcontracted with Moore to install certain floors and ceiling tile in a dining hall at the Base. Ray Bishop, an employee of Moore, asked Merle Stevens, Evans’ superintendent on the job, to borrow a scaffold from Evans’ storage yard, which consisted of four end sections, four cross sections, and four wheels. Bishop and other employees of Moore assembled this scaffold in a two-tier arrangement, placing planks on it, and apparently nailing some cleats on the underneath side of the planks. The scaffolding had six inch diameter wheels, swiveled similar to bed wheels. The scaffold could be moved by the workmen getting down and pushing, or by pushing on the planks with their feet while they pulled or pushed on the overhead grid with their hands.

Bishop used the scaffold. On one occasion one of the wheels stuck, but worked satisfactorily for him after he kicked it free. After Bishop finished with the scaffold, Lindsey used it. On the following morning while Lindsey was using the scaffold, he pushed against the planks with his legs and the overhead grid with his arms; the scaffolding suddenly stopped, two of the planks which did not have any cleats slipped off the scaffold and Lindsey fell to the floor and was injured. Stevens, Evans’ superintendent, had observed Lindsey on the scaffold prior to the fall, but did not tell him to put cleats on the board or to quit moving the scaffold from the top.

Lindsey filed suit for his personal injuries against Evans on February 11, 1963. Evans filed a third-party complaint against Moore on March 8, 1963. The third-party complaint was dismissed by the court on July 8, 1963, on third-party defendant’s motion. On December 9, 1966, Evans filed a motion for leave to file an amended third-party complaint, which was granted on January 4, 1967 over objection. Moore’s subsequent motion to dismiss the amended third-party complaint was denied.

Motion by plaintiff Lindsey was made and allowed to sever the principal case from the third-party trial. Evans objected to the severance and there is no objection by Moore in the record. On March 8, 1971, in the principal case a judgment was entered in favor of Lindsey against Evans in the sum of $22,000 and costs. Thereafter, on June 23, 1971, the jury trial commenced in the third-party proceeding. Verdict and judgment was entered in the third-party proceeding in favor of third-party plaintiff Evans and against third-party defendant Moore in the sum of $22,000. Third-party defendant Moore’s post-trial motion was denied. Moore filed this appeal.

Third-party defendant contends as error that: (1) the trial court had no jurisdiction to grant the filing of the amended third-party complaint; (2) the amended third-party complaint failed to state a cause of action; (3) the denial of third-party defendant’s motion for directed verdict at the close of third-party plaintiff’s case and again at the close of all the evidence; (4) allowing Bishop, Moore’s foreman, to give certain testimony as rebuttal testimony for third-party plaintiff; and (5) giving jury instructions which used the term “wrong-doing” as opposed to “negligence”; failing to define “wrong-doing”; and giving third-party plaintiff’s Instruction No. 16 specifying $22,000 in damages.

The contention is that the trial court was without jurisdiction to grant the filing of the amended third-party complaint three years after the trial court entered its order of dismissal of the third-party complaint. The contention is that such order was a final order and relief should have been sought within thirty days after the order or thereafter pursuant to section 72 of the Civil Practice Act.

This order is governed by Supreme Court Rule 304(a) which became effective on January 1, 1967. It replaced subsection (2) of section 50 of the Illinois Civil Practice Act. Rule 304(a) provides as follows:

“(a) Judgments As To Fewer Than All Parties or Claims — Necessity for Special Finding. If multiple parties or multiple claims for relief are involved in an action, an appeal may be taken from a final judgment as to one or more but fewer than all of the parties or claims only if the trial court has made an express written finding that there is no just reason for delaying enforcement or appeal. Such a finding may be made at the time of the entry of the judgment or thereafter on the court’s own motion or on motion of any party. The time for filing the notice of appeal shall run from the entry of the required finding. In the absence of such a finding, any judgment that adjudicates fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the parties is not enforceable or appealable and is subject to revision at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims, rights, and liabilities of all the parties.”

Until the entry of a final judgment as to all parties, the order of the trial court could be revised. The order was not made a final appealable one under Rule 304. The trial court thus retained jurisdiction until a final judgment had been entered and could permit amendment. No distinction appears proper between “orders” and “judgments” in Rule 304. The former section 50(2) of the Civil Practice Act and Supreme Court Rule 304 deal with both orders and judgments. The Committee Comments to this rule in Smith-Hurd Annotated Statutes states “this rule supplants paragraph (2) of Section 50 of the Civil Practice Act without change of substance but with some amplification.”

The amended third-party complaint does not fail to state a cause of action because it contains no allegation of due care on the part of Lindsey or an allegation of either negligence or wilful violation of the Structural Work Act by Moore.

Contributory negligence and assumption of risk are not defenses to an action brought under the Structural Work Act. This act was adopted to permit recovery by persons employed in dangerous and extra-hazardous occupations regardless of the manner of doing their work. (Fetterman v. Production Steel Co. of Illinois, 4 Ill.App.2d 403, 124 N.E.2d 637; Brackett v. Osborne, 44 Ill.App.2d 441, 195 N.E.2d 8.) The Structural Work Act departs from a fault standard. Contributory negligence or assumption of the risk are not defenses and, indeed, it has been questioned whether or not the Structural Work Act can even be classified as a tort statute. (Krause, Statutory Torts in Illinois, 1967 U. Ill. L.F.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
297 N.E.2d 8, 11 Ill. App. 3d 432, 1973 Ill. App. LEXIS 2452, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lindsey-v-harlan-e-moore-co-illappct-1973.