Chicago, I.&L. Ry. Co. v. Medlock
| Decision Date | 01 March 1918 |
| Docket Number | No. 23108.,23108. |
| Citation | 187 Ind. 224,118 N.E. 810 |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | CHICAGO, I. & L. RY. CO. v. MEDLOCK. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Circuit Court, Harrison County; Wm. Ridley, Judge.
Action by Albert C. Medlock against the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Perry McCart and C. C. Hine, both of Chicago, Ill., and Wilson & Self, of Corydon, for appellant. Stotsenburg & Weathers, of New Albany, for appellee.
[1] This appeal is based on a judgment for $7,000 recovered by appellee on account of personal injuries which he sustained while in the employ of appellant. The first four assignments of error present substantially the same questions for determination and challenge respectively the several paragraphs of complaint on which the cause was tried. It appears from that pleading that on the day of his injury appellee was at work as a member of one of appellant's section crews; that on said day a carload of logs in one of appellant's trains became disarranged to such an extent as to endanger the operation of the train, and was, for that reason, placed on a side track at Orleans to be reloaded; that appellee, with other employés of appellant, was directed to reload and rearrange the logs on said car, and while they were engaged in that work certain wires which held the logs in place were cut and loosened, thus causing the logs to roll off said car and strike appellee, to his serious injury. The several paragraphs of complaint are each based on the Employers' Liability Act of 1911 (Acts 1911, p. 145; section 8020a et seq., Burns 1914), but vary somewhat in their allegations of negligence. For the purpose of determining the questions here presented, however, we need consider only the averments of the first paragraph, in which it is charged that certain of appellee's fellow workmen “carelessly and negligently cut, unfastened, and loosened the wires holding the logs on the car, thereby causing the logs to roll,” etc. The objection urged is that this is the statement of a conclusion, unsupported by the averment of facts which establish negligence. Other allegations of the pleading, however, clearly show that appellee was at work in the course of his employment with appellant and under conditions which required that his fellow laborers should do no act tending to cause his injury. The existence of this duty being shown, it is sufficient if a negligent violation thereof is so charged in general terms, and particularly is this true in the absence of a motion to make more specific. Standard Forging Co. v. Saffel, 176 Ind. 417, 421, 96 N. E. 321; section 343a, Burns 1914. Similar objections are made against the second, third, and fourth paragraphs of complaint, but there is no occasion here to consider the same in detail.
[2] Finally, it is urged that the complaint shows appellee to have been guilty of contributory negligence in taking a position so near the car that he was in danger of being struck by the rolling logs. It does not appear, however, that the logs were likely to fall from the car except through the operation of the train or the act of some person other than appellee, and, in any event, the question of contributory negligence always involves an issue of fact, which is to be determined by the jury. Section 8020g, Burns 1914; J. Woolley Coal Co. v. Tevault ...
To continue reading
Request your trial