Claybrooke v. Bently, 8 Div. 662
| Decision Date | 25 March 1954 |
| Docket Number | 8 Div. 662 |
| Citation | 260 Ala. 678,72 So.2d 412 |
| Parties | CLAYBROOKE v. BENTLY. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Marion F. Lusk, Guntersville, for appellant.
Clark E. Johnson, Jr., H. H. Conway, Albertville, for appellee.
This is a suit in which appellee, as administratrix of the estate of her husband Jesse Bently, obtained a judgment against appellant for negligently causing the death of her intestate.
Jesse was an employee of one Hagood who had a contract with appellant to haul cotton seed from his gin. The gin house was situated thirty or forty feet north of appellant's warehouse. There was a ramp extending from a door of the gin house to a door of the warehouse, over which ramp cotton was rolled into the warehouse. The seed house door was on the west of the space between the gin and warehouse. To reach the seed house it was necessary to pass along that space; and to load the truck it was necessary to back it to the seed house door. The ramp or platform between the buildings was in three sections. The one next to the gin was not movable; while a section ten feet wide was movable by standing it on edge toward the side of the gin, and the remaining portion eight feet wide was lifted up by hand to stand on edge in front of the warehouse door. It rested on a rock or block foundation and had two legs on which the inside edge rested, and when it was lifted those legs stuck out eighteen to twenty-four inches toward the gin house. It was sometimes held in position by a wire wrapped around a nail or sometimes by a man. It weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds and was raised on the occasion in question by Jesse and the truck driver Jones. Instead of fastening it with the wire Jesse stood in the warehouse door and held it. It did not completely fill the open space, but a man could squeeze through it. Jesse was there to direct the backing of the truck. The truck had a fourteen foot tractor and a thirty foot trailer which was not housed in but had slat siding. The driver, who was an experienced truck driver, could not see the rear of the movement except on the left side as he backed the truck. He backed the truck and Jesse told him it was too close to the warehouse and he was to pull it out and make another start back. As he pulled it out the truck caught the upturned ramp, possibly the protruding legs, and pulled it forward toward the east, which closed the space between the ramp and the door 'jamb' and caught Jesse's head in the opening and mashed it causing his death.
The suit was against appellant and Hagood. The court gave the general charge for Hagood, but refused it for appellant. The complaint ascribed to appellant the failure to exercise due care to provide a reasonably safe place in which Jesse as an invitee was expected to work for Hagood who was an independent contractor. The court gave to the jury, at the request of the appellant, the following charge E:
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