Nolan v. Shickle

• Decision Date: 30 April 1879
• Citation: 69 Mo. 336
• Parties: NOLAN, Appellant, v. SHICKLE.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

69 Mo. 336

NOLAN, Appellant,

v.SHICKLE.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

April Term, 1879.

Appeal from St. Louis Court of Appeals.

Marshall & Barclay for appellant.

T. A. & H. M. Post for respondent.

HENRY, J.

This suit was instituted by plaintiff in the circuit court of St. Louis county to recover damages for a personal injury to plaintiff alleged to have occurred in consequence of the negligence of defendant. There is no dispute about the facts, and the case is to be determined on the testimony for the plaintiff and an instruction given by the court.

Plaintiff was employed by defendant, and at the time of the accident was engaged in putting up an iron fence around a circular gallery of the Bessemer Iron Furnace, in East Carondelet. The fence was made of sheet iron plates about four feet high riveted to a frame work of angle iron. The platform or scaffolding on which plaintiff stood, while at this work, consisted of a plank 14 or 16 feet long, 14 inches wide and 2 inches thick. The structure of the gallery and scaffolding is represented by the following diagram:

TABULAR OR GRAPHIC MATERIAL SET AT THIS POINT IS NOT DISPLAYABLE

The space within the inner circle represents the cupola of the furnace, which extends above the gallery. The gallery is six or eight feet wide, and on the same level with a plank bridge, “B,” connecting the rostrum with the eastern furnace. “A” is an extension of the gallery. The plank was the scaffolding. It was laid across two supports of scantling, one end resting on the projection, ““A.” The plane of the bridge, gallery, projection and scaffold was about 65 feet above the ground. The plank forming the scaffold was laid on the scantling supports, “C,” “C,” which were fastened to the under side of the gallery by ropes passing through holes made in the floor of the gallery. The plank had an inclination of some inches caused by the support next the bridge being six or eight inches lower than the level of the projection upon which one end of the plank rested. The outer line of the furnace and projection was to be surrounded by a sheet iron fence, four feet high, and on top of this was to be placed the angle iron. When plaintiff was put to work on the angle iron, the sheet iron fence had been set up and partly riveted together along the southeast quarter of the circle as far as the point where the projection “A” begins. Plaintiff began to put on the angle iron at a point where the side of the bridge toward the projection meets the furnace, and worked along the line to the projection. He commenced about four o'clock p. m., on the 12th day of October, and reached the projection with his work about four o'clock p. m. the next day. The sheet iron fence was not yet up on the projection, and when plaintiff had reached the corner of the projection with his work, he went upon the scaffold to fix the angle iron and it went down with him, and by the fall he was very seriously injured. He had been on the scaffold often on that day, and the day before, while at work as above stated. He never examined the plank particularly. About one o'clock p. m., on the day of the accident, about three hours before it occurred, he let his pencil fall on the projection and it rolled under the edge of the plank, and he then observed that the under side of the plank, for about five or six inches from the end resting on the projection, was tapered or beveled off like a wedge. The platform of the projection was iron, and the plank lapped over it two or three inches beyond the bevel. He supposed, before he fell, that it was nailed to the scantling support next the bridge, but did not go that far out on the scaffold at any time. The plank did not rest on the support next the projection, but only on the projection and the scantling support next the bridge, which plaintiff testified was six or eight inches lower.

It is difficult to understand how the plank could rest upon the projection platform at one end and at the other on a support six or eight inches lower than the projection or the middle...