Chicago, R.I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Hale

• Decision Date: 07 April 1911
• Docket Number: 3,093.
• Citation: 186 F. 626
• Parties: CHICAGO, R.I. & P. RY. CO. v. HALE.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

186 F. 626

CHICAGO, R.I. & P. RY. CO. v. HALE.

No. 3,093.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

April 7, 1911

Syllabus by the Court.

In action for damages for personal injury, the profits of a business or of the performance of a contract derived from the combination of capital and labor do not constitute a sound basis for estimating the earning capacity of the injured person, who furnishes a part of the labor.

H. made a contract with a railroad company to load cars with gravel for a specified amount per cubic yard, and to furnish at his own expense all the teams, tools, scrapers, equipment, labor powder, and other explosives necessary to do the work. He was injured while he was engaged in the performance of this contract, and over the objection of the defendant below he was asked and answered the question: 'What were your earnings at the time of the accident?'

Held there was error in admitting this evidence as a basis for estimating his personal earnings, because the answer necessarily included the profits from his contract.

Before SANBORN and ADAMS, Circuit Judges, and WILLIAM H. MUNGER District Judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

On the motion of the railway company this case has been reheard. Hale, the plaintiff below, had recovered a judgment against the company, and it had complained that at the trial he had been permitted over its objections to answer this question: 'I will ask you to state to the jury what you were earning? ' The contention of counsel for the company was that the question and the answer, which was, 'About $12 a day,' were irrelevant and immaterial, because they included both the value of the personal services of the plaintiff and the profits of a business enterprise combining skill and labor, and that contention was overruled at the former hearing, on the ground that the record at the time the question was asked did not disclose--

'that the plaintiff had combined any substantial capital with his labor in loading the cars. The contract that he was engaged in performing and the fact that other workmen were assisting him were the only pertinent facts in the record, and the case as it then stood fell fairly within the rule that one whose earnings are derived from his labor, skill, or knowledge, without the use of substantial capital, may prove the amount of those earnings at and for a reasonable time anterior to the occasion of his wrongful injury, and the decrease of these earnings necessarily affected by the injury. ' Chicago, R.I. & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Hale, 99 C.C.A. 379, 382, 176 F. 71, 74.

A re-examination, in the light of the argument of counsel upon the rehearing, of the contract and of the testimony that had been produced in evidence when the question challenged was answered, has...