Cougle v. McKee

• Decision Date: 31 October 1892
• Docket Number: 166
• Citation: 25 A. 115,151 Pa. 602
• Parties: Cougle, Appellant, v. McKee et al
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

25 A. 115

151 Pa. 602

Cougle, Appellant, v. McKee et al

No. 166

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

October 31, 1892

Argued March 10, 1891

Appeal, No. 166, Jan. T., 1891, by plaintiff, Elmer Cougle from judgment of C.P. Northampton Co., April T., 1890, No 12, on verdict for defendants, Joseph J. McKee and H. Thomas Milson, trading as McKee & Milson.

Trespass for injuries caused by negligence of defendants in construction of scaffold.

The facts appear by the opinion of the Supreme Court.

At the trial, SCHUYLER, P.J., gave binding instructions for defendants.

Error assigned was this instruction, quoting it.

The judgment must for this reason be reversed and a venire facias de novo awarded.

Russell C. Stewart and Henry W. Scott, for appellants.

W. E. Doster, for appellees.

Before PAXSON, C.J., STERRETT, WILLIAMS, McCOLLUM and MITCHELL, JJ. Reargued March 8, 1892, before PAXSON, C.J., STERRETT, GREEN, WILLIAMS, McCOLLUM, MITCHELL and HEYDRICK, JJ.

OPINION

MR. WILLIAMS, JUSTICE:

There is but a single question raised on this record. In considering that question it is best to recall the familiar proposition that questions of fact are for the determination of the jury. The facts once established or conceded, their legal effect is for the court. When therefore upon all the evidence no question of fact is left in doubt or in controversy the trial judge should direct the verdict; but if facts are in doubt, or there is conflict in the evidence relating to them, the doubt must be resolved or the conflict decided by the jury, before the legal value of such facts can be pronounced by the court. In the case now before us at the conclusion of the evidence the learned judge of the court below directed a verdict in favor of the defendants, and the question now to be decided is whether the facts were free from controversy or doubt, so that there was no question to be decided by the jury.

The defendants are contractors who were engaged in building a stand-pipe for the borough of Bethlehem. The structure was to be of iron, fifty feet in height and fifty feet in circumference. It was built in sections or rings, each of which was five or six feet in height. After the first ring was secured to the bottom of the stand-pipe a scaffold was erected extending around the inside of it, from which a second ring was bolted upon the first. The scaffold was then raised again and a third ring put in place, and so on until a height of forty-five feet was reached. So far the scaffolds had been regularly built by a competent carpenter and they had successively sustained the weight of the workmen and the materials and tools required by them. The last ring was all that remained to complete the walls of the stand-pipe, and to put this in place it became necessary to raise the scaffold once more. The carpenter was not sent for to do this work but Milson, one of the defendants, taking Murphy one of the ironworkers on the structure with him, erected the scaffold, completing it just as the day closed. On the following morning soon after the workmen began their labor part of the scaffold fell, taking several of the men down with it...