Mitchell v. Wabash Railway Co.

69 S.W.2d 286, 334 Mo. 926, 1934 Mo. LEXIS 496
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedFebruary 23, 1934
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 69 S.W.2d 286 (Mitchell v. Wabash Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mitchell v. Wabash Railway Co., 69 S.W.2d 286, 334 Mo. 926, 1934 Mo. LEXIS 496 (Mo. 1934).

Opinions

Action for damages for personal injuries in which plaintiff obtained a verdict for $25,000. The circuit court required him to remit $10,000 of the verdict and upon that being done entered a judgment for him for $15,000, from which all the defendants have appealed.

Plaintiff had his right leg crushed by a turntable of defendant railway company at Kansas City. Defendants Whitlock and Burnley were employees of the railway company. Burnley was its foreman in charge of the men employed at and about the turntable and roundhouse and of the work being done and Whitlock was operating the turntable when plaintiff was injured. Both are charged with acts of negligence. Plaintiff's evidence tended to prove the following: *Page 931

The turntable is set in a circular pit about one hundred feet in diameter and four or five feet deep. A wall with a top eighteen inches or two feet wide surrounds the pit. The table is about one hundred feet long extending across the pit, resting upon a structure in the center of the pit upon which it revolves and at each end upon a four-wheel truck. The trucks move on a circular track built in the pit near the wall. Except for the table and its supports the space inside the pit is open. The table is wide enough for one railroad track which runs the length of the table. The rails thereon are on a level with those on the tracks leading to it from the roundhouse and its floor is even with the bottom of the rails. It is operated by electricity, the operating mechanism being in a cab located beside the table at one end thereof, that end being called the cab end. The table can be moved in either direction at the election of the operator. About one hundred feet west of the turntable the railway company maintains a roundhouse in which there are eight stalls from each of which a track leads to the table, terminating at the inner edge of the top of the wall, so that engines can pass therefrom onto the table. Those tracks are numbered consecutively 1 to 8 inclusive, beginning with the southernmost.

At or near each end of the table there is an electric light, referred to as a "reflection light," some eighteen inches or two feet above the floor, having a cup-shaped shade or reflector, the purpose of which is to throw the light upon the ends of the rails so that in "spotting" the table the operator can see when the track on the table is properly aligned with the one leading from the roundhouse. Those lights furnish but little illumination except immediately about the ends of the rails. There is an electric light in the cab of the turntable which we shall hereafter refer to as the cab light. At each of the two corners of the roundhouse nearest the turntable there is a large electric light, called a flood light, for the purpose of lighting the premises generally for the convenience and safety of employees.

Plaintiff was an engine wiper but from time to time performed other services as ordered by Burnley. He was familiar with and had at times operated the turntable which, however, was usually operated by Whitlock. Burnley and Whitlock had instructed plaintiff how to operate the table and in so instructing him Burnley, in the presence of Whitlock, had told him always to "flash" the cab light before moving the table as a signal that the table was about to be moved and to leave it turned on. When operating the table plaintiff always turned on that light when about to start it and it was the custom for the operator so to turn on said light as a signal. It was also customary to have the flood lights turned on at night.

Plaintiff was injured in the nighttime. He had been working in the roundhouse about an engine and had started to a hydrant north of the tracks leading from the roundhouse to the turntable to get a *Page 932 drink of water when he met Burnley. The turntable was then standing with the cab at track No. 2. Burnley told plaintiff to get his drink and then to go and operate the turntable and place it so as to receive an engine from track No. 5; that he, Burnley could not find Whitlock. Plaintiff got his drink and came back toward the turntable intending, in obedience to Burnley's order, to go to the cab and operate it. The flood lights were not on and it was dark, though he could see the tops of the rails as he crossed the tracks toward the table. He made no complaint of the flood lights being out when Burnley ordered him to operate the table because Burnley ordered him to go and operate it. As he approached the table the cab light was not on and he did not know or suspect that anyone was in the cab. He stepped upon the pit wall and was in the act of stepping from the wall onto the floor of the table near the "north" corner thereof when the table, without the cab light being turned on or signal or warning of any kind, was started in motion, moving northward. Just before or about the time he started to step on the table plaintiff heard a signal from the engine in stall No. 5 that it was ready to come out to the table. At the moment plaintiff discovered the table was moving he had started to step onto it, one foot being still on the wall, and was unable to check himself. His foot came down upon some movable object on the floor of the table, possibly a piece of coal or a tool. He could not tell what it was because in the dim light he did not see it. The unexpected movement of the table, aided perhaps by his stepping upon said object, caused him to fall upon the floor of the table with his right leg "hanging down" over the edge and before he could recover from that position his right foot and leg were caught and crushed, "ground," between the table and the wall. When plaintiff fell he "commenced to holler," and Whitlock, who had started the table, stopped and reversed it, moving it southward and releasing plaintiff. "He didn't stop immediately, I was caught and ground a ways." Plaintiff was taken to a hospital where his leg was at once amputated.

Defendants' evidence tended to prove that plaintiff was not ordered to operate the table and had no business upon or about it; that the flood lights were burning (concededly it was customary to keep them burning at night); that it was not the custom for the cab light to be turned on before starting the table and that plaintiff had not been so instructed; that the only purpose of that light was to illuminate the interior of the cab in case repairs had to be made or work done about the mechanism therein; and that the table was started southward, not northward. It appears from defendants' evidence that the roundhouse hostler requested Whitlock, in Burnley's presence, to move the table and set it for track No. 5, and that Burnley saw Whitlock walk toward the table for that purpose, knowing it to be his purpose, just before plaintiff was injured. This was *Page 933 after Burnley had ordered plaintiff to go and operate it, if that order was given as plaintiff testified. It is conceded that Whitlock did not flash or turn on the cab light before starting the table and that no warning or notice was given plaintiff that it was about to be moved by another than himself.

Plaintiff's petition alleges negligence in permitting and causing the turntable to be started without warning or notice to plaintiff after he had been ordered to operate it; in Burnley's failure to notify Whitlock that plaintiff had been ordered to operate it and to inform plaintiff, after ordering him to operate it, that Whitlock was going to operate it; in setting the table in motion without turning on the cab light, in violation of the custom and the instructions which defendants had given plaintiff; and in failure to have the flood lights burning. There was also an allegation upon the theory of the humanitarian doctrine which was abandoned.

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Bluebook (online)
69 S.W.2d 286, 334 Mo. 926, 1934 Mo. LEXIS 496, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mitchell-v-wabash-railway-co-mo-1934.