Quebec Co v. Merchant

• Decision Date: 03 March 1890
• Citation: 10 S.Ct. 397,133 U.S. 375,33 L.Ed. 656
• Parties: QUEBEC S. S. CO. v. MERCHANT
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

133 U.S. 375

10 S.Ct. 397

33 L.Ed. 656

QUEBEC S. S. CO. v. MERCHANT.

March 3, 1890.

Wm. Allen Buter and W. Mynderse, for plaintiff in error.

A. J. Dittenhoefer, for defendant in error.

BLATCHFORD, J.

This was an action to recover damages for personal injuries brought by Barbara Merchant against the Quebec Steam-Ship Company, a Canadian corporation, in the superior court of the city of New York, and removed by the plaintiff into the circuit court of the United States for the southern district on New York. The case was tried by a jury, which ound a verdict for the plaintiff for $5,000, on which a judgment was entered in her favor for that amount, with $306 interest from the time of rendering the verdict to the time of entering judgment, and $60.25 costs,—in all, $5,366.25. The plaintiff was the stewardess of the steam-ship Bermuda, a vessel belonging to the defendant, and one of a line of vessels plying between the city of New York and the West Indies. She had been employed on the vessel for about 18 months. It was her duty as stewardess to attend to the ladies' rooms in the cabin, and, in the course of that duty, to empty slops, as to which her orders were to throw them over the side of the ressel. The cabin was on deck. A railing extended around the vessel, and consisted of four horizontal iron rods, which were supported, at intervals of about 4 1/2 feet, by stanchions. In this railing there were openings or gangways, for receiving and discharging freight and passengers. Three of the gangways were for passengers. One of them faced one of the doors of the cabin, which open on the deck. In order to use these openings or gangways, the four iron rods which formed the railing of the gangway, instead of being fixed immovably to the stanchions, were each of them fastened at one end to a stanchion by a ring or eyelet in which the rod could swing, the other end of each rod being formed into a hook which went into an eye fastened on another stanchion to receive it. This was a proper construction of the railing at the gangway. On the 28th of December, 1883, the vessel was at anchor from a mile and a half to two miles off the shore of the island of Trinidad, one of the islands at which she stopped in her trips. Some passengers from New York were to land at Trinidad, and their baggage was put off through the gangway on the starboard side aft, into a boat from the shore. To do this, the four rods composing the railing in the gangway were raised, and the gangway was opened. After the baggage had been discharged, the carpenter and the porter of the vessel undertook, according to the testimony of a witness for the plaintiff, to replace the rods in their proper position. He says that the porter, one West, 'was at one stanchion, pushing forward, while the carpenter stood at the other, where the hook fitted into the eye, trying to force it into the eye. It began raining, and the carpenter and West were beginning to get wet.' Thereupon the carpenter left the gangway, and the porter left it soon afterwards. The rods were not placed in their proper positions, but remained so far unfastened that the hooks were not secured in the eyes. The porter testified, as a witness for the defendant, that he told the carpenter to put the rods in, and that he replied, 'Wait untilt he rain goes over.' While the rods were thus unfastened, the plaintiff came out of the cabin door with a pail of slops, to throw its contents over the side of the vessel. She leaned over the railing at the gangway, the rods gave way, and she fell overboard, through the opening, and was seriously injured. She probably struck the edge of a small boat which was lying there, and thence fell into the water. She had been in the habit of emptying sops at this gangway, but had never noticed...