Dizonno v. Great Northern Railway Company
| Decision Date | 17 January 1908 |
| Docket Number | 15,396 - (142) |
| Parties | VITO DIZONNO v. GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Ramsey county to recover $20,000 damages for personal injuries caused by the alleged negligence of defendant's servant while plaintiff was in its employ. The case was tried before Bunn, J., and a jury which returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff for $3,000. From an order denying its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial, defendant appealed. Affirmed.
Vice Principal.
The foreman of a gang of workmen, engaged in removing iron plates from an overturned freight car, ordered a workman to go to a certain point to work, which required him to step on and pass over a pile of iron plates. While the workman was in the act of passing over the plates, the foreman, knowing that he was there, raised one of the plates so as to cause it to slide from the pile and injure the workman. Held, that the foreman acted as a vice principal in ordering the workman to pass over the pile of plates, and in negligently moving the plates, and thus increasing the danger of the situation.
M. L Countryman, for appellant.
Edwin S. Thompson, for respondent.
A flat car, known as a "gondola car," belonging to the Great Northern Railway Company, loaded with steel plates, tipped over and caused the wreck of a freight train. The car fell outside the rails, and the track was soon cleared, leaving the car on its side. The steel plates with which the car was loaded were about thirty feet long, five feet wide, and half an inch thick. In this car there were thirty such plates laid flat on the top of each other. Each plate weighed about a ton. When the car tipped over it rested upon its edge or side. The plates slid out, and rested partly on the ground and partly on the edge of the car. About a dozen of the top plates slid further out, and left eighteen or twenty plates resting flat on the side of the car and extending a portion of their length and breadth upon the ground. The car could not be moved until these plates were taken away, and this was attempted in the following manner: The morning after the accident some Italian laborers, including this respondent, were taken from their ordinary work of constructing and repairing the track and set to work, under the direction of the assistant roadmaster, removing the steel plates preliminary to getting the flat car back on the rails. The assistant roadmaster with a pinch bar pried up the inner edge of the top plate, so that the laborers could get hold of it with their hands, and then the men, lifting together, raised the plate up on its edge, pushed it over, and let it fall on the ground. This operation was continued until about a dozen of the plates had been pushed over in a pile by themselves. The work was being done hurriedly, and the roadmaster with strong language was constantly urging the men to "hurry up!" About twenty one of the plates then remained in part upon the car. The roadmaster was standing behind the pile, next to the perpendicular floor of the car, and was using the pinch bar to pry up plates. The workmen were standing about waiting for the plate to be lifted up, in order that they might get hold of the edge and turn it over. The respondent seems at the time to have been standing on the pile of removed plates.
While the parties were in this situation the roadmaster peremptorily ordered the respondent to come over to and behind the plates which were yet on the car; that is, to get into the place where the roadmaster himself was standing. At the time this order was given the roadmaster was not actually using the pinch bar, but was standing erect and looking at the men. In obedience to the order the respondent jumped from the top of the removed plates onto the top of the pile of plates behind which the roadmaster was standing with a pinch bar in his hand. He landed safely on top of the pile of plates at a point some two and one half or three feet distant from where the roadmaster was standing, and started immediately across the pile in a diagonal direction, with the intention of going into the space between the plates and the vertical part of the car, for the purpose of assisting the roadmaster in the work of getting the plates out of the way. While the respondent was on the pile of plates and walking towards the roadmaster, the...
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