Erie R. Co. v. Murphy
| Decision Date | 19 January 1940 |
| Docket Number | No. 7958.,7958. |
| Citation | 126 ALR 1093,108 F.2d 817 |
| Parties | ERIE R. CO. v. MURPHY. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Martin S. Wilkison, of Youngstown, Ohio (Manchester, Ford, Bennett & Powers and M. S. Wilkison, all of Youngstown, Ohio, on the brief), for appellant.
John Ruffalo, of Youngstown, Ohio, for appellee.
Before HICKS, SIMONS, and ARANT, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a judgment upon a verdict in favor of appellee, who sued to recover damages resulting from an injury he sustained while unloading a car load of beaverboard, delivered by appellant to appellee's employer, the Youngstown Pressed Steel Company, of Warren, Ohio.
Appellant received the car under seal from the Great Northern Railroad in Chicago and delivered it, sealed, to consignee, on the latter's side track, which ran into or through its building. When appellee arrived to assist in unloading, enough of the beaverboard had been removed to create a vacant space in the car about as wide as its door and deep enough to admit a hand truck about four feet long and two and one-half feet wide, which was in the car; this truck was equipped at one end with two stationary wheels and at the other with two revolving wheels and a handle for pulling it.
Appellee had loaded the truck and, with his back to it, had started to pull it out of the car onto a platform, when one of the revolving wheels dropped into a hole in the car floor, causing appellee's left foot to be caught between the floor and the lowered portion of the loaded truck. The hole through which the wheel dropped was of somewhat irregular shape, about a foot wide and two feet long, and was so covered by the truck as to be out of sight when appellee entered the car. There was evidence that there were three other holes of varying sizes in the floor of the car, and that no warning had been given that the floor appeared to be defective.
Appellant's first contention is that, as delivering carrier, it was under no duty so to inspect a sealed car received from another carrier as to ascertain whether it was safe for unloading, but that only such inspection was required as would reveal whether the car was reasonably fit for transportation. Secondly, appellant contends that, if it did owe such a duty, there was no substantial evidence that a reasonable inspection would have disclosed the defect that caused appellee's injury. In support of this latter position, appellant argues that, even if the holes had been detected by an inspection from...
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