Carter Coal Co. v. Dozier

• Decision Date: 25 May 1916
• Citation: 186 S.W. 140,170 Ky. 374
• Parties: CARTER COAL CO. v. DOZIER.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

186 S.W. 140

170 Ky. 374

CARTER COAL CO. v. DOZIER.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

May 25, 1916

Appeal from Circuit Court, Knox County.

Action by Willie Dozier, by next friend, against the Carter Coal Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed, with directions for new trial.

P. D Black and Black, Black & Owens, all of Barbourville, for appellant.

J. M Robsion, of Barbourville, for appellee.

CARROLL J.

The appellee, Willie Dozier, a boy about 11 years old, was severely injured when a train of coal cars being operated by the appellant, Carter Coal Company, broke loose from the cable by which they were being propelled along an incline and ran down and against the coal tipple at the foot of the incline, near which Willie was engaged in picking up coal. In a suit by his next friend to recover damages for the injuries so sustained, there was a verdict and judgment against the coal company for $7,000, and it appeals.

The entrance or mouth of the mine operated by the coal company was on the side of a mountain about 500 feet from its base. At the base there was a coal tipple, from which the coal taken from the mine was loaded into railroad cars. The coal company had two adjoining railroad tracks running from the tipple to the mouth of the mine, and on these tracks the coal was carried from the mine to the tipple in coal cars which were operated by a wire cable rope attached to a drum near the mouth of the mine. The custom was to let down four loaded coal cars and at the same time pull up four empty cars. The loaded cars going down the incline supplied the power that pulled up the empty ones.

An employé of the coal company, stationed at the mouth of the mine, controlled by levers the movement of the cars. There was also an employé at the foot of the incline, near the tipple, who assisted in the movement of the cars. The incline tracks were equipped with safety switches and devices for derailing cars, if by any accident they came loose from the cable in being operated up or down the tracks, and these safety switches could be operated by a lever convenient to the employé at the mouth of the mine, and also by a lever convenient to the employé at the tipple; and it was the duty of both of these employés, whenever a car or train of cars in any way came loose from the cable, to at once operate the safety switches, so as to derail the cars and prevent them from running down the track into and against the tipple.

The power was applied to the cars by the cable being attached to a hook under the body of one of the cars in the train, and on the day in question, when a train of four loaded cars had been started down the incline by the employé at the mouth of the mine, and at the same time four empty cars had been started up the incline on the other track, the hook to which the cable was attached on one of the loaded cars straightened out, and when this occurred the cars came loose from the cable connection and ran down the incline at a high rate of speed, and into and against the tipple.

It also appears that a number of miners and their families lived near the tipple, and these miners were in the habit of getting coal for domestic use around the tipple, and on the day and at the time the cable...