American Dredging Co. v. Walls

• Decision Date: 10 January 1898
• Docket Number: 3.
• Citation: 84 F. 428
• Parties: AMERICAN DREDGING CO. v. WALLS.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

84 F. 428

AMERICAN DREDGING CO. v. WALLS.

No. 3.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

January 10, 1898

Joseph T. Bunting, for plaintiff in error.

Harvey K. Newitt, for defendant in error.

Before ACHESON and DALLAS, Circuit Judges, and KIRKPATRICK, District judge.

DALLAS Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff below (defendant here) brought his action to recover damages for personal injury sustained while he was in the employment of the defendant below. When the accident happened he was upon a certain 'inclined table' on board the steam dredge Republic, for the purpose of oiling a part of the machinery. While thus lawfully there, he fell and his right hand was caught in the mechanism and severely injured. He averred in his statement of claim that the disaster was occasioned by the negligence of the defendant in that the said table 'had no cleats or other appliances thereon to protect persons lawfully there from falling and injury, (and) the said master of said dredge, in violation of his duty, negligently caused the machinery of said dredge to be put in motion, and the said dredge to roll. ' The plaintiff proceeded in accordance with this allegation and adduced evidence in its support. The learned judge, however held-- and in this he was clearly right-- that the person who caused the machinery to be put in motion was the plaintiff's fellow servant, and that, therefore, for any negligence of his there could be no recovery; but he declined to charge as requested, that, 'under all the evidence in this case, the verdict of the jury must be for the defendant,' and in this we think there was error. It is not clear that the act of putting the machinery in motion should not be regarded as the sole cause of plaintiff's injury. But for that act the plaintiff's situation would not have been a dangerous one, and the accident would not have happened. He testified: 'If the machinery had not been started, my hand would not have been hurt, because there would have been nothing there to hurt it. ' How then can it be said that the alleged faulty construction of the table contributed to produce that hurt, and that the movement of the machinery was but one of two concurrent causes of the harmful result? This question is, at least, not free from difficulty; but it need not be answered, for our judgment does not depend upon its solution, but rests upon the objection to the plaintiff's asserted right of action, which will now be considered.

The plaintiff was a man 22 years of age. He had been working on this dredge for upwards of 6 weeks when he was hurt. He had been very...