Chicago & E.R. Co. v. Shaw

• Decision Date: 06 May 1902
• Docket Number: 793.
• Citation: 116 F. 621
• Parties: CHICAGO & E.R. CO. v. SHAW.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

116 F. 621

CHICAGO & E.R. CO. v. SHAW.

No. 793.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

May 6, 1902

W. O Johnson and John Stirlen, for plaintiff in error.

James C. McShane, for defendant in error.

Before JENKINS and GROSSCUP, Circuit Judges, and BAKER, District judge.

PER CURIAM.

The plaintiff in error was the defendant below in an action by the defendant in error (plaintiff below) to recover for personal injuries received in the switch yards of the plaintiff in error. The substantial facts in the case may be stated as follows: The plaintiff in error, the Chicago & Erie Railroad Company, owns and operates a railroad from the city of Chicago to points east, and maintains, in the vicinity of Fifty-First street, switch yards consisting of a number of tracks, running north and south, and parallel with each other. The north end of four of these tracks, numbered 15 16, 17, and 18 (track 18 being elevated, and known as the 'hill' track), was reserved by the plaintiff in error for the use of Joseph Gregg and others, grain shippers on the board of trade in Chicago, in the transference of grain from cars coming to Chicago from the west into cars bound for the east. This grain was transferred from the western cars into the eastern cars, either in bulk or in sacks; the plaintiff in error placing immediately opposite the loaded cars a corresponding number of empty cars upon the adjacent track for the purpose of receiving the grain. The defendant in error, Shaw, had been for several years an employee of Gregg and acted in the capacity of superintendent over the several crews employed by Gregg for the above-named work. March 8 1898, the morning of the accident out of which this action grew, Shaw was engaged in superintending the transfer of grain that had arrived in the yards of the plaintiff in error, in bulk, from the west, and the sacking and loading of the same into empty cars bound for the east. There was evidence sufficient to go to the jury tending to show that on the morning referred to, Shaw arrived at the yards of the railroad company, and proceeded, in the execution of what he supposed were his orders, to the north end of the tracks reserved for the transfer of grain. Here he found loaded and empty cars so situated on tracks 17 and 16 that he supposed they were set for the transference of grain from the loaded cars into the empty cars. Having so informed his men, he proceeded with them...