East Tenn. & W.N.C.R. Co. v. Collins
| Decision Date | 30 October 1886 |
| Parties | EAST TENNESSEE & W. N. C. R. Co. v. COLLINS. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Appealed in error from circuit court, Carter county.
N. M Taylor and Robert Burrow, for plaintiff in error.
Thomas Curtin, for respondent in error.
Collins sued the defendant in error for $5,000 damages for injuries received by him while in the service of the company, engaged in coupling cars, on the eighteenth of August, 1883. He obtained a verdict and judgment for $700, and the company appealed in error. The negligence averred in the declaration was that of the engineer in recklessly, unskillfully suddenly, and neglectfully backing one car against another while plaintiff was engaged in coupling the two, in consequence of which plaintiff's left hand was caught and mashed, and two of his fingers lost; and the engineer so negligently causing said injury was averred to be plaintiff's superior. The issue was, not guilty.
Various errors are assigned, one of which it is not necessary to notice,--the want of evidence to sustain the verdict,--because there is to be a new trial, and another of which it is for this reason necessary to determine, to avoid any further controversy over it in that case; that is, the objection there and here urged, that the engineer was the fellow-servant of the plaintiff, and the company not therefore, liable for injuries inflicted by his negligence and for this, the case of Nashville, C. & St. L. R Co. v. Wheless, 10 Lea, 741, is cited as authority. The case is not only not authority for such position, but is directly contrary. The facts in that case were that the conductor, who was in control of the train, and who was the common superior of both the engineer and the brakeman, had given orders that the train be coupled up, and gone into the depot to attend to other business. In obeying his orders, the engineer and brakeman were acting when the accident occurred, and they were clearly fellow-servants at that time, engaged in a common employment, under a common superior, and the company not liable to either for injury occasioned by the negligence of the other. But it is expressly said in that case (and the reasoning and obvious propriety of the rule make the expression unnecessary) that--...
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Grattis v. Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gulf Railroad Company
...held that one who is the engineer and conductor of a train is not a fellow servant with the brakeman), and the case of Railroad v. Collins, 85 Tenn. 227, 1 S.W. 883 the engineer was held not to be a fellow servant with a brakeman). Without further reference to other cases then, it may be sa......
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...them with respect to their work, and also because it was his duty to see that they had proper tools with which to work. In R. Co. v. Collins, 85 Tenn. 227, 1 S.W. 883, R. Co. v. Martin, 87 Tenn. 398, 10 S.W. 772, 3 L. R. A. 282, it was held that the engineer was the vice principal of the br......
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