Dunn v. Boston & N. St. Ry.

CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
Citation189 Mass. 62,75 N.E. 75
PartiesDUNN v. BOSTON & N. ST. RY.
Decision Date08 September 1905
COUNSEL

Daniel J. Donahue and Albert S. Howard, for plaintiff.

Reginald Foster, William D. Turner, and George Hogg, for defendant.

OPINION

LATHROP, J.

This is an action of tort for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, while in the employ of the defendant, on February 20, 1904. The declaration contains four counts. The first is under Rev. Laws, c. 106, § 71, cl. 2, alleging the negligence of a superintendent. The second is under clause 1 of the same statute, for a defect in the defendant's ways, works, and machinery. The third and fourth are at common law. At the close of the evidence the judge directed a verdict for the defendant. If the verdict was properly ordered, judgment is to be entered for the defendant; otherwise, by agreement of counsel, judgment is to be entered for the plaintiff, and the damages assessed by a jury.

The plaintiff was about 30 years of age, and had been in the employ of the defendant at its power house in Lowell for some 16 to 18 months before the accident, engaged in putting asbestos coverings on steam pipes, unloading coal cars, and doing other odd jobs, when ordered by Nelson Young, the engineer of the defendant in general charge of the power house and the men employed there. Adjoining the boiler room was a coal shed belonging to the defendant, into which cars loaded with coal to be unloaded by the defendant were pushed over a single spur track from the road of the Boston & Maine Railroad, running up an incline to an elavated structure, which at the place of the accident was some 20 to 25 feet above the floor of the power house, and was level for a space sufficient to accommodate four long coal cars. The track rested on large sleepers supported by beams from the ground. A gangway about two feet wide, for men occupied in unloading cars to stand on, was laid on sleepers outside the rails on both sides. There was a space some three feet wide between the sleepers and the wall of the shed on the side where the plaintiff fell. These conditions had existed during the time the plaintiff had worked at the power house, and he testified that he did not need any one to give him directions how to unload a coal car. On the day of the accident the plaintiff, with three others, was ordered by Young 'to go and unload them coal cars.' There was evidence that while unloading the cars he was injured by a defect in one of...

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11 cases
  • Folsom v. Lowden
    • United States
    • Kansas Supreme Court
    • 10 d6 Julho d6 1943
    ... ... The case rests upon the ... doctrine of intervening cause, much as our Merrill case. It ... was cited and distinguished in D'Almeida v. Boston & ... Maine Railroad, 209 Mass. 81, 95 N.E. 398, Ann ... Cas.1913C, 751, where the employee of a coal company was ... killed while unloading a ... 782; ... Gillespie's Executors v. Howard, 219 Ky. 721, ... 294 S.W. 154; Jacob v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 133 ... La. 735, 738, 63 So. 306; Dunn v. Boston & N. St. R ... Co., 189 Mass. 62, 75 N.E. 75, 109 Am.St. Rep. 601; ... Corbett v. New York Cent. & H. R. R. Co., 215 Mass ... 435, 102 ... ...
  • Gillespie's Ex'rs v. Howard
    • United States
    • Kentucky Court of Appeals
    • 6 d5 Maio d5 1927
    ... ... the same manner as if he owned them and were operated as a ... part of his plant and equipment. In the case of Dunn v ... Boston & Northern St. Ry. Co., 189 Mass. 62, 75 N.E. 75, ... 109 Am. St. Rep. 601, the distinction between a case where a ... master is ... ...
  • Jones v. Standard Oil Company of Louisiana
    • United States
    • Arkansas Supreme Court
    • 21 d1 Junho d1 1920
    ... ... commodities shipped in such cars to make any inspection of ...          In the ... case of Dunn v. Boston & N. St ... Ry., 189 Mass. 62, 75 N.E. 75, the employee was injured ... while unloading a defective car, the injury being occasioned ... ...
  • Scoffin v. Abernathy Furniture Company
    • United States
    • Kansas Court of Appeals
    • 13 d6 Junho d6 1914
    ... ... 305; Nugent v ... Milling Co., 131 Mo. 241. (3) Under all the testimony ... plaintiff was not entitled to recover. Dunn v ... Railroad, 189 Mass. 62, 75 N.E. 75; Rooney v. Railroad, ... 208 Mass. 106, 94 N.E. 288 ...          Martin ... J. O'Donnell and ... ...
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