Frank Munsey v. Wesley Webb

• Decision Date: 17 November 1913
• Docket Number: No. 40,40
• Citation: 34 S.Ct. 44,231 U.S. 150,58 L.Ed. 162
• Parties: FRANK A. MUNSEY, Plff. in Err., v. WESLEY WEBB, Administrator of the Estate of Samuel T. Pennington
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

231 U.S. 150

34 S.Ct. 44

58 L.Ed. 162

FRANK A. MUNSEY, Plff. in Err.,

v WESLEY WEBB, Administrator of the Estate of Samuel T. Pennington.

No. 40.

Argued November 4, 5, 1913.

Decided November 17, 1913.

Messrs. Charles A. Douglas, John W. Price, Hugh H. Obear, Wilton J. Lambert, C. K. Mount, J. Norment Powell, H. H. Shelton, Thomas Ruffin for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 150-154 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Arthur Peter, Preston B. Ray, and Julian W. Whiting for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an action brought against the owner of a building for causing the death of the plaintiff's intestate in an elevator in which the deceased was being carried to his place of employment. Negligent construction and negligent management of the elevator are alleged. The plaintiff had a verdict against a request by the defendant that one be directed for him, the judgment was affirmed by the court of appeals (37 App. D. C. 185), and the defendant brought the case here.

The elevator car did not quite fill the well, or shaft, and the bottom of the floor that it was approaching projected at right angles into the well about 3 1/2 inches. The car was equipped with a collapsible door which was open at the time of the accident, and the boy in charge did not have his arm across the space as he had been instructed to do. Between the fourth and fifth floors the deceased fell, and his head was caught between the projecting bottom of the fifth floor and the floor of the car and was crushed. The negligence relied upon is the leaving of the door open and failure to guard the space; the not having a flange or piece of metal inclining from the projecting floor to the shaft wall, and the failure to use an emergency switch, the quickest means of stopping the car, the boy in charge not having been instructed in the use of it.

The plaintiff in error argued at some length that there was no negligence, because the fall of deceased was something wholly out of the ordinary course, and not to be foreseen; or that, if there was negligence in any sense, it was not the proximate cause of the death, but merely a passive condition made harmful by the fall. Neither argument can be maintained. It is true that it was not to be anticipated specifically that a man should drop from internal causes into the open door of the car. But the possibility and the danger that in some way one in the car should get some part of his person outside the car while it was in motion was obvious, and was shown to have been anticipated by the door being there. In some circumstances, at least, it was a danger that ought to be and was guarded against. It is said that the danger was manifest only when the car was crowded, and that the door was needed only for that. If the duty to have the car shut on all sides had been created with reference only to conditions different in kind from those of the accident, it may be that the plaintiff could not avail himself of a requirement imposed alio intuitu. The Eugene F. Moran, 212 U. S. 466, 476, 53 L. ed. 600, 604, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 339. But the accident was similar in kind to those...