McEachin v. Burks

75 S.W.2d 794, 189 Ark. 947, 1934 Ark. LEXIS 60
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedNovember 12, 1934
Docket4-3597
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 75 S.W.2d 794 (McEachin v. Burks) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McEachin v. Burks, 75 S.W.2d 794, 189 Ark. 947, 1934 Ark. LEXIS 60 (Ark. 1934).

Opinion

Butler, J.

Appellee recovered a verdict in the sum of $10,000 for injuries suffered while employed by the appellants, a partnership, as a common laborer in the construction of a concrete tank at the State Hospital near Benton. Appellee is a married man, ivas a manual laborer, strong and in good health and had been employed on this job since it was started two months before his injury, at which time he was twenty-one years old. Before that he had farmed and worked for a while on State highway construction.

The appeal in this case involves only the question of the employers’ negligence. It is appellants’ contention that there is no legal evidence sufficient to support the verdict. No evidence was offered by the appellants. Th©> case was submitted on the testimony adduced by the appellee in which there is no conflict. The difference of opinion arises as to what are the just inferences reasonably deducible from the evidence.

The tank on which appellee was working when he sustained his injury is a rectangular pit. It was excavated with a steam shovel to the depth of twelve feet. On the bottom and sides wooden forms were installed into which concrete was poured thus making the walls around the pit and a partition wall. The wooden forms had been removed, leaving the walls, which were sixteen inches wide. On the outside of the walls the dirt had been excavated for the purpose of installing drains. At intervals along the walls and near the middle were holes four inches square. The top of the walls had not been smoothed or plastered over, leaving the surface more or less uneven. On the date of the injury to appellee, August 25, 1933, the partition was being used for the storing of lumber and the laborers were engaged in the afternoon of that day in rolling loads of cement and sand in wheelbarrows along and on top of the walls surrounding the pit, under the supervision of their boss or foreman. For just what purpose this material was intended to be used is not disclosed, nor is that fact important. During the afternoon and .just before appellee sustained his injury, he had rolled along the wall a couple of loads of sacks of cement in a wheelbarrow. He had also rolled along- the wall two wheelbarrow loads of sand. Herman Lott, a fellow workman, had rolled a load of sand up in another wheelbarrow. Appellee’s superior directed him to leave the wheelbarrow in which he had brought up the sacks of cement with the last load remaining in it and directed him to take the wheelbarrow Lott had been using and ■ get another load of sand. That wheelbarrow still had some sand in it which appellee unloaded and immediately went to the sand pile, reloaded it, and began pushing this wheelbarrow so loaded along the top of the wall as he had been directed to do. In pushing the wheelbarrow he held the handles which extended on either side of him with his hands. That was the first day he had rolled a wheelbarrow on top of the wall. The holes were am-covered, and it was necessaiy to guide the wheelbarrow so as to miss them. It was while making this trip that he lost his balance and fell into the hole resulting in serious injury to himself.

In describing the manner in which he pushed the wheelbarrow and how he happened to fall, appellee stated that he had no knowledge of the condition of the wheelbarrow and had had no opportunity to ascertain it. He took the one he had been instructed to take and never got far enough with the load on it to be able to discover its condition. He was uncertain what caused him to fall — he was trying to avoid the holes as he propelled the wheelbarrow, which, as he stated, “just rolled some way on the rocks or hole and got me overbalanced and kicked me in. I can’t tell just exactly — I was trying to keep the wheelbarrow under control to keep from falling. I can’t say exactly what the wheelbarrow hit.’’

Appellee was required to repeat several times, both on direct and cross-examination, the manner in which he rolled the wheelbarrow and how his fall was occasioned, but the above quotation contains essentially all that he stated in regard to the incident and his knowledge of its cause. No other person observed appellee as he fell or just before his fall. Three of his fellow employees testified. All that two of them knew was that they heard the fall of the wheelbarrow and the outcry of the appellee and saw his condition when they reached him in the pit into which he had fallen. The third employee did not see the accident but went also at once to his injured fellow and noticed the wheehbarrow and described its condition at that time. His testimony is to the effect that he examined the wheelbarrow a little— but not much; that he looked at it as it was being taken out of the pit sufficiently to observe its condition, which he described as “pretty shackly.” In the frame part there were bolts missing and wire had been inserted where they should have been to hold the frame together.

At the conclusion of the testimony the appellants moved for a peremptory instruction which the court refused, and this action on the part of the court is the principal ground of error assigned. The contentions are (1) that there is no evidence to sustain the claim that the accident resulted from youth, inexperience, of failure to warn; (2) that there is no legally sufficient evidence to show _ that the wheelbarrow was defective before the accident, or that any defect in the wheelbarrow caused the accident; (3) that the risks were obvious and assumed. In disposing of the first contention it is sufficient to say that the allegations of the youth and inexperience of the appellee and failure to warn were abandoned and were not issues in the case. Contentions numbered two and three will be discussed in the order above stated, which is the reverse from the order of discussion in appellant’s brief.

It is contended that there is no competent and legal evidence tending to show the condition of the wheelbarrow before the accident. We agree with the appellants that evidence is incompetent where the defects discovered are such that they may reasonably be supposed to have been the result of the accident itself when there are no circumstances in proof from which there may arise a reasonable inference that the defective condition of the instrumentality existed prior to the accident. In this case, however, it appears that a jnst inference may be drawn from the evidence relating to the condi.tion of the wheelbarrow that such condition had existed for a considerable time. Its ramshackle condition might reasonably be deemed to have been occasioned by the loss of the bolts from the frame of the barrow and the substitution of wire in their stead. Learned counsel contend that the manner of construction of wheelbarrows is one of common knowledge. We agree that this is true, but differ with counsel in their conclusion that wheelbarrows are not rigidly built; as to the frame or “body” of a wheelbarrow, the reverse is. true. It is likewise the case that while wire is often substituted for a lost bolt, it cannot, and does not draw the parts together as firmly.as a bolt well tightened.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
75 S.W.2d 794, 189 Ark. 947, 1934 Ark. LEXIS 60, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mceachin-v-burks-ark-1934.