Stool v. Southern Pac. Co.

172 P. 101, 88 Or. 350, 1918 Ore. LEXIS 43
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedApril 9, 1918
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 172 P. 101 (Stool v. Southern Pac. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stool v. Southern Pac. Co., 172 P. 101, 88 Or. 350, 1918 Ore. LEXIS 43 (Or. 1918).

Opinion

McBRIDE, C. J.

Learned counsel for defendant has stated concisely the basic questions which arise in the examination of this case, namely: (1) Was de[357]*357cedent injured while performing duties connected with interstate commerce, and (2) was defendant guilty of negligence in any particular constituting a proximate cause of the injury. A multitude of minor questions relating to the admission of testimony and. the giving or refusing of instructions are discussed in the briefs and will be considered in their order, but as those above noted are fundamental and go to the right of plaintiff to recover in any event, they will be first considered.

1. It is conceded that defendant’s road is an interstate road and that defendant at the time of the injury was engaged in interstate commerce, and it is also conceded that deceased was at the time of the injury in the employ of the defendant as a section-hand, whose duty it was to render service to defendant in repairing its- road. It is agreed that pursuant to such employment deceased was present at the tool-house of defendant a few minutes before 7 o’clock in the morning in order to be ready to resume work at precisely 7 o’clock, which was the hour prescribed by defendant. The tool-house seems to have been the place at which the workmen were accustomed to assemble and in order to be on hand promptly it was natural that a workman residing at some distance, in decedent’s case two miles, from the place of assembly should endeavor to be there a little ahead of time so as not to delay the work or lose time. Does the fact that the accident occurred while the deceased was waiting for the moment to come when actual labor was to begin deprive his dependents of the benefits of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act? We think not. It was necessary and convenient both for himself and his employer that he should be there in readiness to resume his labor at 7 o’clock, and that the time de[358]*358voted to actual work with the pick and shovel should •not be partly consumed by traveling to the place where it was to be done. His employer had a right to expect as a part of his contract of labor that he would be on the ground ready to use the tools necessary for the accomplishment of his work when the bell tapped seven. It was a part of his duty in order that he should render efficient service to be upon the ground, and the fact that in his zeal to comply with his duty he was there somewhere from one minute to ten minutes before the time his physical labors were to be required, should not be held to deprive his dependents of the benefits of the. Employers’ Liability Act. We think the case in this respect comes within the spirit of the rule laid down in the following cases, although the circumstances of none of them are in all respects identical with that of the case at bar: Lamphere v. Oregon R. & Nav. Co., 196 Fed. 336 (47 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1, 116 C. C. A. 156); Horton v. Oregon-Washington R. & Nav. Co., 72 Wash. 503 (130 Pac. 897, 47 L. R. A. (N. S.) 8); St. Louis, San Francisco & Texas Ry. Co. v. Seale, 229 U. S. 156 (Ann. Cas. 1914C, 156, 57 L. Ed. 1129, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 651); Stone-Webster Engineering Corp. v. Collins, 199 Fed. 581 (118 C. C. A. 55); Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co. v. Whitacre, 124 Md. 411 (92 Atl. 1060); North Carolina R. Co. v. Zachary, 232 U. S. 248 (Ann. Cas. 1914C, 159, 58 L. Ed. 591, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 305, 9 N. C. C. A. 109). Holding as we do, therefore, that the presence of the decedent upon the grounds of the defendant under the circumstances last detailed, did not deprive his dependents of the benefits of the Liability Act, we will consider further whether his leaving the immediate vicinity of the tool-house has such an effect.

[359]*3592. This case was tried two years after the happening of the accident and if any of the fellow-employees of deceased were present near the scene of the'accident they were not called; the probabilities are that none were near. The most that can be said in any event is that the place chosen by deceased to wait for his foreman was not the safest and that he might have chosen a safer place. Why he left the tool-house and walked down the track is a matter of speculation. He might have gone upon some personal errand although this seems improbable under the circumstances. He was going in the direction of the place on the road where he had worked the day previous and the most reasonable theory would seem to be that he expected to resume his labor in that vicinity on the morning of the accident, and return at noon to the tool-house where he left his dinner-pail, and that instead of loitering on the track he was actually on his way to where his services were required. The hand-car, which is the usual conveyance for tools from one part of a railroad section to another, was locked up with the other tools in the tool-house, and nothing could be more natural than for deceased to leave his dinner-bucket there and walk down the track so as to resume his labors where he had left off the evening before. The section foreman of defendant, whose memory seemed remarkably retentive on most subjects, testified that he could not remember where his section gang were intending to work that morning, but it is a fair inference and one that the jury had a right to draw from the facts proven that deceased was on his way to the place where the gang had left off the evening before, with the intent to resume his work there when the car had arrived with the tools. We take it, therefore, that there was evidence tending to show [360]*360that deceased was engaged in an employment so connected with interstate commerce as to bring his dependents within the scope of the act, and that he was upon defendant’s track for the purpose of pursuing that employment and that if there is any testimony tending to show that defendant’s servants engaged in the management of the work train, were guilty of the acts of negligence charged in the complaint, the verdict for plaintiff ought to stand unless the proceedings upon the trial were so erroneous in other respects as to justify a reversal.

3. It may be conceded, in fact it may be said to be conclusively proven, that the deceased was negligent in not keeping a better lookout for approaching trains, but if defendant’s engineer was also negligent in respect to warning deceased of his danger after his presence on the track had been perceived, so that the joint negligence of both the deceased and defendant brought about an injury which, but for such combined negligence would not have happened, then such combined negligence must be deemed the proximate cause of the injury. And while at common law the contributory negligence of the deceased would have been a complete defense, yet in an action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act such contributory negligence only goes to reduce the quantum of damages: Sec. 3, Fed. Em. Liability Act, 1908.

4-6. "We will now consider the question as to the negligence of the defendant. It may be conceded that as a general rule no rate of speed by a train is per se negligent: Russell v. Oregon R. & N. Co., 54 Or. 128 (102 Pac. 619). But it does not follow that because a high rate of speed is not negligence per se

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Riviera Motors, Inc. v. Higbee
609 P.2d 369 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1980)
Henthorne v. Hopwood
345 P.2d 249 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1959)
Southern Pacific Co. v. Raish
205 F.2d 389 (Ninth Circuit, 1953)
Kurn v. Weaver
161 S.W.2d 1005 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1940)
CHICAGO, M., ST. P. & PR CO. v. Kane
33 F.2d 866 (Ninth Circuit, 1929)
Stamos v. Portland Electric Power Co.
274 P. 915 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1929)
Baker v. State Industrial Accident Commission
274 P. 905 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1929)
Walker v. Fireman's Fund Insurance
234 P. 542 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1925)
Perrin v. Union Pac. R.
201 P. 405 (Utah Supreme Court, 1921)
Poole v. Tilford
195 P. 1114 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1921)
Kuntz v. Emerson Hardwood Co.
184 P. 253 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1919)
Fuller v. Oregon-Wash. R. & N. Co.
181 P. 338 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1919)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
172 P. 101, 88 Or. 350, 1918 Ore. LEXIS 43, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stool-v-southern-pac-co-or-1918.