Baries v. St. Louis Independent Packing Co.

• Decision Date: 08 March 1932
• Docket Number: No. 21919.,21919.
• Citation: 46 S.W.2d 952
• Parties: BARIES v. ST. LOUIS INDEPENDENT PACKING CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

46 S.W.2d 952

BARIES v. ST. LOUIS INDEPENDENT PACKING CO.

No. 21919.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

March 8, 1932.

Rehearing Denied March 22, 1932.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Claude O. Pearcy, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by Albert Baries against the St. Louis Independent Packing Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Jones, Hocker, Sullivan & Angert and Ralph T. Finley, all of St. Louis, for appellant.

R. T. Brownrigg and Mason, Goodman & Flynn, all of St. Louis, for respondent.

BECKER, J.

Plaintiff recovered judgment for $4,000 against defendant in his action for damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained through the negligence of the defendant. The defendant appeals.

The second amended petition on which the case was tried alleges that on November 5, 1926, while plaintiff was in the employ of defendant company in its meat packing department, he suffered serious, painful, and permanent injuries; that it was plaintiff's duty in the course of his employment to pack meat into shipping boxes, and, for that purpose, to bring the empty boxes used for packing to the weighing scales where the meat was packed; that on said date he was ordered by the defendant, through its superior servant, who directed plaintiff in his work, to bring up a box of the proper size for packing therein three hundred pounds of meat; that plaintiff approached the scales with said box on his shoulder, walking in the aisleway between piles of boxes which were stacked up about as high as plaintiff's head; that the passageway to the scales was so blocked by the said stacks of boxes that there was a space of only about two and a half or three feet between the stacks of boxes on each side of the passageway; that as plaintiff was passing along said passageway with said box on his shoulder the box which plaintiff was carrying struck against the side of one of said stacks of boxes which obstructed the passageway, which caused said box to slip from plaintiff's hands and caused a splinter from the box which he was carrying to enter plaintiff's index finger on his right hand at about the end of the terminal joint.

Plaintiff further states that his said injury so received was directly due to the negligence of said defendant, and said negligence then and there consisted in this, to wit: That there was not reasonably sufficient room for plaintiff to walk and to carry said box along the said passageway, blocked as aforesaid, and said defendant, in allowing said passageway to become so blocked and obstructed as aforesaid so as to leave such a narrow space for plaintiff to walk and carry the said burden, failed to exercise ordinary care to provide plaintiff with a reasonably safe place for his work, and, as a direct result thereof, plaintiff was injured as aforesaid.

The answer was a general denial together with an allegation that whatever injuries, if any, plaintiff received on the occasion in question was the result of an accident arising out of and in the course of plaintiff's employment.

Appellant, defendant below, here urges that the trial court erred in refusing its demurrer to the evidence offered at the close of the case on the ground that the evidence wholly failed to establish any negligence on the part of the defendant either that the aisle or passageway in question was too narrow or was not reasonably safe. And it is further alleged that the demurrer should have been given, in that the plaintiff's said petition is based upon the theory that the aisle or passageway was blocked or obstructed, and that the said passageway was unsafe only in connection with said blocked or obstructed condition, and that the plaintiff failed to introduce any evidence to show that the passageway was either blocked or obstructed.

We find that the record discloses evidence which, if believed, tended to prove that plaintiff was directed to get an empty wooden box large enough to pack three hundred pounds of meat therein, and bring it to a scale where the meat was to be weighed and packed. Plaintiff proceeded to the south end of an aisle and got a box, lifted it to his shoulder, and then walked north along said aisle until he reached the end thereof, and where it was necessary for him to turn south into an aisle which ran east and west, in which aisle the weighing scale to which he was directed to carry the box was situated. This east and west aisle was flanked on each side by a row of empty packing boxes piled to the height of six and one-half to seven feet. Boxes of the size to pack twenty-five pounds of meat were piled to the north of the aisle, and on the south side of the aisle there was a row of empty boxes of the size in which fifty pounds of meat were packed. With reference to this short east and west aisle, plaintiff was...