Boston & MRR v. Meech
| Decision Date | 28 October 1946 |
| Docket Number | No. 4145.,4145. |
| Parties | BOSTON & M. R. R. v. MEECH. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Francis P. Garland, of Boston, Mass. (Hurlburt, Jones, Hall & Bickford, of Boston, Mass., on the brief), for appellant.
Thomas H. Mahony, of Boston, Mass. (C. Edward Rowe, of Athol, Mass., and Jay Walter Mead, of Orange, Mass., on the brief), for appellee.
Before MAGRUDER, MAHONEY, and WOODBURY, Circuit Judges.
Writ of Certiorari Denied October 28, 1946. See 67 S.Ct. 124.
This is an appeal from a judgment entered upon a verdict returned for the plaintiff in an action brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S. C.A. chapter 2, §§ 51-60, to recover for the death of the plaintiff's intestate. The complaint is in two counts; the first alleging that the decedent met his death by reason of the negligent operation of one of the defendant's locomotives, the second alleging that the decedent's death was caused by the defendant's failure to provide him with a reasonably safe place in which to work. The verdict was returned without specification of the count upon which it was based and may, therefore, have been based upon either or both.
The questions before us on this appeal are whether the evidence upon either count is sufficient to support the verdict, and whether the court below erred in refusing to charge as requested. There is no question of the applicability of the act under which this action is brought.
At the time of his death the decedent had been employed by the defendant for about three months to work in and around its engine house in Deerfield, Massachusetts, as a machinist's helper. On the night of the accident (it occurred on June 28, 1944, at about 1:45 a. m.) the decedent had been assigned by his immediate superior to the work of "stripping" incoming locomotives. This work consisted in removing the lanterns, oilers, and small tools from locomotives as they came in off the road and putting that equipment in the "equipment building", so called, where it was cleaned and then stored until it was replaced on a locomotive in the course of making it ready to go out on the road again.
Ordinarily, if not always, "stripping" was done from a structure just outside the engine house known as the "washstand". This consisted of two parallel wooden platforms about 100 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 5 or 6 inches above ground level, on either side of a track which ran substantially east and west and connected the turntable in the central area of the engine house with the railroad yard outside. The distance between the inner edge of each platform comprising the washstand and the rail adjacent thereto was 1.6 feet and locomotives such as the one which struck the decedent overhang the rails some 2 feet and 8 inches and thus overhang each platform of the washstand about 1.2 feet or 15 inches. Locomotives were ordinarily "stripped" from the platform on the northerly side of the track since that platform was adjacent to the equipment building.
Just prior to his death the decedent was standing near the northerly edge of the southerly platform apparently facing in the general direction of the turntable and thus in the path of but oblivious to the approach of the locomotive being backed into the washstand from the yard to be "stripped" which struck and killed him. This locomotive was being operated at the time by a "hostler" who was sitting in the engineer's seat on the right hand side of the cab at the controls. It is not disputed that from his seat the hostler could not see a person standing where the decedent must have been standing when struck because of the obstruction to the range of his vision caused by the tender and the coal in it. It is further conceded that the locomotive was moving slowly, in fact that it was coming to a stop, when it struck the decedent; that a search light on the rear of the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Isgett v. Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Company
...safety, the employer cannot escape liability if further precautions were possible and reasonable and were not taken. Boston & M. R. R. v. Meech (CCA 1, 1946), 156 F.2d 109, cert. den. 329 U.S. 763, 67 S.Ct. 124, 91 L.Ed. 658. In the case at bar the court finds credible testimony to the effe......
-
Griffith v. Gardner
...321 U.S. 29, 64 S.Ct. 409; Ellis v. Union Pac. Ry. Co., 329 U.S. 649, 67 S.Ct. 598; Gray v. Kurn, 345 Mo. 1027, 137 S.W.2d 558; Boston v. M.R. Co., 156 F.2d 109. There was no error in plaintiff's Instruction 1 and the same was amply sustained by the evidence. Ford v. Louisville & N.R. Co., ......
-
Cheffey v. Pennsylvania R. Co., Civil Action No. 5913.
...and that, if this safer method * * * had been followed, the injury * * * would not have occurred." And again in Boston & M. R. R. v. Meech, 1 Cir. 1946, 156 F.2d 109, 111, certiorari denied 329 U.S. 762, 67 S.Ct. 124, 91 L.Ed. 658, "It may be that the locomotive was being operated in the wa......
-
Chicago, St. P., M. & OR Co. v. Arnold
...warning and obey the order to get off the car, was clearly for the jury. Griswold v. Gardner, 7 Cir., 155 F.2d 333; Boston & M. R. R. v. Meech, 1 Cir., 156 F.2d 109; Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 318 U.S. 54, 63 S.Ct. 444, 87 L.Ed. 610, 143 A.L.R. 967; Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line ......