Angel v. Carolina Spruce Co.

• Decision Date: 10 December 1919
• Docket Number: 519.
• Citation: 101 S.E. 384,178 N.C. 621
• Parties: ANGEL v. CAROLINA SPRUCE CO.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

101 S.E. 384

178 N.C. 621

ANGEL v. CAROLINA SPRUCE CO.

No. 519.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

December 10, 1919

Appeal from Superior Court, Yancey County; Webb, Judge.

Action by Sam Angel against the Carolina Spruce Company. Judgment of nonsuit, and plaintiff appeals. Judgment of nonsuit as to plaintiff's first cause of action affirmed, and judgment of nonsuit on the second cause of action set aside.

In action for unskillful treatment of plaintiff's injury by the physician employed by defendant to treat its injured employees, held, under the evidence, that plaintiff was entitled to have his cause submitted to the jury.

The complaint sets forth two causes of action:

First that while plaintiff, an employé of the company, was engaged as wood chopper in getting out timber from the company's land, a tree, which plaintiff and another had felled in the course of his work, rolled on plaintiff's foot, mashing it severely and ultimately causing the loss of several toes the negligence imputed being a failure to provide plaintiff with a safe place to work, and negligent directions given by one W. E. Wiseman, plaintiff's boss and who stood towards plaintiff in relation of vice principal.

The second cause of action being for injuries and pain and suffering due to treatment of plaintiff's hurt or lack of it by an unattentive and unskillful physician employed by the company to treat its injured employés, retained by the company with full knowledge of his limitations and methods.

At the close of the testimony, on motion, there was judgment of nonsuit as to both causes of action, and plaintiff excepted and appealed.

R Wilson and G. E. Gardner, both of Burnsville, for appellant.

Charles Hutchins, of Burnsville, and A. Hall Johnston, of Asheville for appellee.

HOKE J. (after stating the facts as above).

On the first cause of action there were facts in evidence on the part of the plaintiff tending to show that, in the latter part of 1916 and the first of 1917, plaintiff and one Willard Gregory, an employé of defendant, were engaged in getting out timber from the company's land in said county, and in the course of their employment had cut down a tree that fell so as to make it inconvenient for sawing the same into logs that, with a view of giving the tree a better placing, they proceeded to cut off the branches and top of the tree, and as they cut the latter the body of the tree rolled down on plaintiff's foot, severely injuring it, so that from the hurt or the negligent treatment of the company's physician, who attended plaintiff, or from both, three of his toes, the great toe and two next to it, had to be amputated. It further appeared that plaintiff had long been engaged in work of this kind; that the particular job was well within his experience and training, and he was left largely to his own methods of doing it. Upon these facts, chiefly pertinent to the inquiry, we see nothing that tends to establish culpable negligence on the part of the company. In Rumbley v. R. R., 153 N.C. 457, 69 S.E. 416, plaintiff and another carpenter had been sent by defendant to take down an old shed on the company's right of way. While standing on one of the joists knocking loose the rafters overhead, they gave way, knocking the plaintiff to the ground and causing the injuries complained of. On these facts a judgment of nonsuit was sustained, and the court in delivering the opinion...