Vogrin v. American Steel & Wire Co.

179 Ill. App. 245, 1913 Ill. App. LEXIS 894
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 12, 1913
DocketGen. No. 5,658
StatusPublished

This text of 179 Ill. App. 245 (Vogrin v. American Steel & Wire 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
Vogrin v. American Steel & Wire Co., 179 Ill. App. 245, 1913 Ill. App. LEXIS 894 (Ill. Ct. App. 1913).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Carnes

delivered the opinion of the court.

■ Appellant was injured while in the employ of appellee on March 18, 1909. This suit was brought to recover for such injury. Within two years there was filed first, a declaration consisting of one count and after-' wards five additional counts, demurrers were sustained to the declaration and additional counts; and after more than two years had elapsed appellant took leave to amend and filed what is called an amended declaration, but it consisted of the first three of said additional counts with the phrase hereinafter mentioned inserted. Appellee filed pleas of the General Issue and Statute of Limitations to each count so amended, the court overruled demurrers to the pleas of the statute. Appellant stood by his demurrers and final judgment was entered from which this appeal is prosecuted.

The only question argued is whether the original declaration or either of the five additional counts filed within the two years stated a cause of action; or as appellant says in his brief “The sole question presented by this record for review is: Does the amended declaration (the same having been filed more than two years after the cause of action accrued) state a new cause of action or is the same simply a re-statement of the cause of action defectively stated, in the original declaration and additional counts thereof. ’ ’ If the amended declaration does state a new cause of action there is no question but the pleas of the Statute of Limitations were good- and the demurrers thereto properly overruled. This is well settled by oft repeated decisions .of our Supreme and Appellate courts so familiar to the profession that we need not stop to point out the cases.

The first count of the amended declaration is the first of the five additional counts filed within the two year period and its averments so far as material to the question here are, without the clauses enclosed in brackets, as follows: “Said defendant was engaged in the business of manufacturing nails, wire and other metallic products * * * and was possessed of and using and operating certain mills, shops, factories, machinery, runways and premises, wherein and about which said defendant manufactured and moved about said nails, etc.

* * * “Plaintiff-on the day aforesaid and for some time prior thereto.....was in the employ of said defendant as an oiler, and as such oiler, was required to and did in the discharge of his duty, pass through, along, in and about said mills, shops, factories, runways and premises of the said defendant; that it thereupon became and it was the duty of said defendant, in designing, planning, locating, constructing, using, managing and operating said mill, shops, factories and runways to exercise ordinary care and caution so as not to expose said plaintiff and other employes in and about said mills, shops, factories and runways to unnecessary hazard and danger. Tet the said defendant ............so carelessly planned, located, designed, constructed, used, managed and operated said mills, shops, factories, runways and premises that by, through and in consequence of the carelessness and negligence of the said defendant in that behalf said plaintiff while passing by and along one of said building, mills, factories and over and across one of said runways on said premises (in the discharge of his duty as an oiler) in the exercise of ordinary care and caution for his own safety was struck and hit with a large bundle of wire,” etc. (Then follows statement of injury, damages, etc.)

The clause in brackets is the only amendment of this count, and the other two counts of the amended declaration were changed only by the insertion of this same clause. The amendment added the statement that the plaintiff was at the time of his injury at the place in question in the discharge of his duty as the servant of the defendant; neither the original declaration nor any of the five additional counts differ materially from the count above quoted from, so far as the question under consideration is concerned. It appears in other counts that the injury was occasioned by plaintiff catching his foot between a plank and rail on said runway and while so caught, a large bundle of wire that was being rolled down said runway struck and injured him? In the original declaration after reciting the business of the defendant and plaintiff’s employment in the service of defendant on the day of the injury “and for a long time prior thereto as an oiler” it is averred that as such oiler said plaintiff in the discharge of his duty was then and there required to pass through, along and about said buildings, mills, runways, etc. This averment was substantially the same as would be the one in the count just quoted from with the words “then and there” inserted before the words “required to pass.” In each of the remaining four additional counts that same form as in the one first quoted is followed i. e., the words “then and there” were omitted. The state-' ment in substance is that the plaintiff was at the time of his injury and for some time prior thereto in the employ of the defendant and was required in the discharge of his duty to pass from place to place over the entire premises of the defendant. Appellant calls our attention especially to these words then and there used in the original declaration; if they mean or can be read as meaning the time and place of the injury the count was not defective in this respect, and no question could be raised but the amendment merely restates in different language the allegation of the declaration; but the word then plainly refers not to the time of the injury but to the whole time of plaintiff’s service and does not mean more than the allegation in each of the five amended counts, and amounts only to an averment that in the course of plaintiff’s duties as the servant of defendant during the entire time of his service he had occasion to pass over said runway. There is no averment direct or by inference that in the discharge of plaintiff’s duty he often passed over said runway. He may have passed over it once a day or once a month or even once in the entire period of his service and the averment still be true. If we indulge inferences in favor of the pleader, instead of against him, the most that can be said is that in the course of plaintiff’s employment he had occasion from time to time to pass over said runway which seems to us to fall short of even a defective statement that plaintiff was at the time of his injury upon the runway “in the discharge of his duty as an oiler.” If this be so then the amended declaration to which the Statute of Limitations was plead contained the first statement, either good or defective, that the plaintiff at the time of his injury was on the runway in question while in the performance of his duty to the defendant. As his case was stated before the amendment he may have been there of his own volition for some purpose personal to himself and entirely unconnected with any dirty he owed his employer. There is no averment in the original declaration and counts that defendant knew, or might or ought to have known that the plaintiff was on the runway at the time of the injury.

The decision of this case seems to us controlled by the cases of Mackey v. Northern Milling Co., 210 Ill. 115, and McAndrews v. Chicago, L. S. & E. R. Co., 222 Ill. 232.

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Related

Schueler v. Mueller
61 N.E. 1044 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1901)
Mackey v. Northern Milling Co.
71 N.E. 448 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1904)
McAndrews v. Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway Co.
78 N.E. 603 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1906)
Bahr v. National Safe Deposit Co.
84 N.E. 717 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1908)
O'Rourke v. Sproul
147 Ill. App. 609 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1909)

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Bluebook (online)
179 Ill. App. 245, 1913 Ill. App. LEXIS 894, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vogrin-v-american-steel-wire-co-illappct-1913.