Beaulieu v. Tremblay

• Decision Date: 29 January 1931
• Citation: 153 A. 353
• Parties: BEAULIEU v. TREMBLAY (two cases).
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

153 A. 353

BEAULIEU

v. TREMBLAY (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 29, 1931.

On Motion and Exceptions from Superior Court, Androscoggin County.

Separate actions by Elizabeth Beaulieu and by Joseph Beaulieu against Hermengilde Tremblay, tried together. Verdicts for plaintiffs. On motions and exceptions of defendant.

New trial granted on question of damages only.

Argued before PATTANGALL, C. J., and DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, FARRINGTON, and THAXTER, JJ.

Louis J. Brann and Peter A. Isaacson, both of Lewiston, for plaintiffs.

Frank A. Morey, of Lewiston, for defendant.

STURGIS, J.

These actions of negligence to recover for personal injuries received by the plaintiff Elizabeth Beaulieu and for the resulting damages to her husband resulted in verdicts for the plaintiffs. The cases were tried together below and come to this court on motions and exceptions.

Motions: A reading of the evidence convinces the court that the jury were warranted in finding that, as the plaintiff Elizabeth Beaulieu, on February 24, 1930, meeting an acquaintance, Mrs. Graham, stopped on the sidewalk of Main street in Lewiston in front of the Bauer building, she was struck from behind by wooden blocks thrown against her by the impact of a steel beam, swung around in the street, under the direction of the defendant's foreman.

The beam, fifty-four feet long and weighing more than five tons, lay close to and parallel to the sidewalk, with one end held up by blockings and the other down on the street. Without warning to the women, the defendant's foreman, one Blanchette, ordered the driver of a truck, belonging to W. E. Cloutier & Co., but then hired by the defendant, to pull the beam around. A cable had been run from the truck to the end of the beam held up by the blockings, and, when the truck started, the lower end of the beam swung towards and over the sidewalk knocking some blocking, lying alongside, against the plaintiff's feet or legs. She was thrown backwards down on the blocks with her companion on top of her. The nature and extent of her injuries will be considered later.

The plaintiff Elizabeth Beaulieu was at the time of her injuries exercising her rights as a traveler upon a public highway. Her stop upon the sidewalk did not change her status. Silverman v. Usen, 128 Me. 349, 147 A. 421. Assuming that the defendant's servants were using the highway lawfully, and the contrary does not appear, the duty rested upon them to so conduct their master's work that no lack of due care and caution on their part caused injuries to the plaintiff.

Common sense and common knowledge of the elementary laws of physics would have warned a reasonably prudent man that the traction applied by the truck to the steel beam, as it was blocked up, might turn the beam as upon a pivot. And with knowledge on the part of the defendant's foreman of the presence of the women on the sidewalk and of the blocking just inside the lower end of the beam, which is admitted, we think the jury were warranted in the conclusion that a reasonably prudent man would have anticipated the results effected. A warning would have sent the women out of the danger zone. A barrier would have barred them from it. Delay until they passed on would have prevented the accident.

Directing and procuring the turn of the beam towards the sidewalk, under the circumstances, was clearly negligence on the part of the foreman, for which the defendant is chargeable. It is no defense that the driver of the truck participated in the turn of the beam. The evidence is sufficient to justify a finding that the driver was working under the specific directions and control of the foreman, Blanchette, and was temporarily at least the defendant's servant. Pease v. Gardner, ...