Clapper v. Dickinson
| Decision Date | 11 July 1917 |
| Docket Number | 20,455 - (235) |
| Citation | 163 N.W. 752,137 Minn. 415 |
| Parties | GEORGE H. CLAPPER v. JACOB M. DICKINSON |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Hennepin county against the receiver of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company to recover $50,000 for injuries received while in the employ of that company. The case was tried before Molyneaux J., and a jury which returned a verdict for $23,000, and answered in the affirmative the five questions specified in the third paragraph of the opinion. From an order denying his motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial, defendant appealed. Affirmed.
Violation of Federal Safety Appliance Act -- proximate cause.
1. An interstate railway carrier is liable in damages to an employee injured in the discharge of his duties, regardless of the position he may have occupied at the time he was injured, where the carrier's failure to comply with the Federal Safety Appliance Act is the proximate cause of such injury.
Violation of Federal Safety Appliance Act -- defective coupler.
2. To recover for injury arising from a defective coupler, it is not material that the employee did not receive the injury in attempting to effect a coupling between cars.
New trial -- general verdict sustained by evidence and special findings.
3. Where the special findings of the jury disclose the basis of the general verdict to be one for which, under the pleadings and evidence, defendant is liable, errors of the court in respect to other issues upon which defendant might or might not be liable are immaterial and no ground for a new trial.
New trial.
4. The evidence supports the verdict, general and special, and the record presents no reversible error.
Stringer & Seymour, for appellant.
George C. Stiles and D. C. Edwards, for respondent.
The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company, a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Illinois, operates a line of railroad in and through several adjoining states, as such is engaged in interstate commerce, and subject to the Federal Safety Appliance Act. Defendant Dickinson is operating the road as receiver. Plaintiff was in its employ as a switching foreman at Moline, Illinois, and at the time in question was engaged with other employees in making up trains for the interstate service of the company. He received an injury while engaged in such work, by reason of the alleged defective condition of the coupler attachment of one of the cars being switched about the yard, and brought this action to recover therefor, charging such defect in the coupler and other items of alleged negligence, as the basis of his right of action. He had a verdict, and defendant appealed from an order denying his alternative motion for judgment or a new trial.
The facts which the evidence justified the jury in finding stated without unnecessary detail, are substantially as follows: Plaintiff was superintending and assisting in making up interstate freight trains in the Moline yards. There are numerous yard tracks upon and over which the switching operations in making up such trains were carried on. In the course of the work a car loaded with pig iron, which will be designated as the pig iron car, was switched upon track No. 4, and there held in position by a wooden block in front of the wheels. The track is upon a grade, and that was the usual method of holding in place cars switched thereon. The next movement was the switching of another car, designated as the M.K. & T. car, upon the same track with the view of coupling it onto the pig iron car; both cars to form a part of the train being made up. Each was equipped with the automatic coupler which operates, when in proper order, by being brought together with sufficient force to cause the parts thereof to perform their functions. The car was "kicked back" upon that track, but when it came in contact with the pig iron car a coupling was not effected by reason, as plaintiff claims, of the defective coupler on that car. The force of the impact was sufficient, however, to move the pig iron car enough to permit the blocking to fall from the rail and released it from its position; the brakes thereon were not set. The M.K. & T. car started down the grade, and the switchman in charge of this operation attempted to stop it by placing in front of the wheels thereof the block that had been released from the pig iron car as just stated. This method proved ineffective, the block fell from the rail, and the switchman then climbed to the top of the car, the same being an ordinary box car, and finally brought it to a stop by means of the hand brake thereon. Plaintiff was present when these operations were in progress, and took part therein. He noticed the failure of the couplers to work, and also that the M.K. & T. car was running down the grade with the switchman at the brake attempting to stop it. He supposed from the fact that the switchman was "hanging onto the brake" that for some reason it could not be set, and he picked up a block, and, when the car was finally stopped, placed it in front of the wheels to hold the car in place. In the meantime, a fact unknown to plaintiff, the pig iron car having been released by the impact when the two cars came together was also running down the grade about a car length behind the M.K. & T. car. Immediately upon placing the block in front of the wheels of that car, which was then at a standstill, plaintiff stepped upon the track, intending to pass to the other side, when the pig iron car violently struck or collided with the M.K. & T. car forcing it forward against plaintiff and throwing him down upon the track. He was run over by the car and received such injuries that it became necessary to amputate the left leg above the knee and one-half of the right foot.
Though the complaint charged, and the court submitted to the jury,...
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