Bergman v. Altman

• Decision Date: 11 July 1905
• Citation: 127 Iowa 693,104 N.W. 280
• Parties: BERGMAN v. ALTMAN.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

127 Iowa 693

104 N.W. 280

BERGMAN

v.ALTMAN.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

July 11, 1905.

Appeal from District Court, Dubuque County; Fred O'Donnell, Judge.

Action to recover damages. Verdict was directed for defendant, and judgment entered thereon. The plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.Lyon & Lyon, for appellant.

Hurd, Lenehan & Kiesel, for appellee.

LADD, J.

The defendant, having obtained plans and specifications for a house on his farm, near Dubuque, arranged with a contractor to furnish men to do the work at the wage of 30 cents an hour each. This was all the contractor was to do. He employed men, and they proceeded to erect the building without a foreman. The only instruction given by defendant was to erect the house according to the plans. The frame was up, and also the scaffolding, when plaintiff was added to the force and began work, sheathing the rafters and making a dormer window. He then undertook to put on the cornice. With him on the scaffold was one Nicks, and after they had worked an hour or two the board nailed to the building, called the “lookout,” and extending out to the upright, and on which the plank where they were standing rested, gave way, precipitating them to the ground, 10 feet below. The plaintiff was seriously and permanently injured. The grounds of negligence alleged are (1) that the lumber furnished for the staging was inferior, unsound, shaky, unfit, and decayed, and not strong enough; (2) the unskillful manner in nailing the lumber together; and (3) erecting the house without a superintendent or overseer. If there was no evidence tending to establish at least one of these grounds, the verdict was rightly directed. The lookout was a 6-inch board, 1 inch thick, which extended 4 feet from the building to the upright scantling, and some distance on the building. Plaintiff knew nothing of its character, and testified that it split in two on the building. Another witness thought it broke about 18 inches back from the corner of the building. There was no evidence whatever tending to show that the nailing was defective, though appellant insists that breaking 18 inches from the corner indicates that no nails were driven in the board between the place where it broke and the corner. But there was no showing that nails should have been driven there, and the testimony that “the staging was built as stagings are usually built” was undisputed. Nor was there anything to indicate that the accident resulted from having the work...