Fowler v. Chi. & N. W. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 14 October 1884
• Citation: 21 N.W. 40,61 Wis. 159
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
• Parties: FOWLER v. CHICAGO & N. W. RY. CO. AND ANOTHER.

61 Wis. 159

21 N.W. 40

FOWLER

v.CHICAGO & N. W. RY. CO. AND ANOTHER.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Filed October 14, 1884.

Appeal from circuit court, Juneau county.

Lusk & Perry, for appellant.

W. F. Vilas and J. C. Spooner, for respondent.

ORTON, J.

The respondent companies use the same yard and the same engine, and jointly employ the men to do the switching, to distribute the cars to the several roads at their junction at Elroy. The plaintiff was, and had been for nearly a year, employed about the yard, and 16 days as the switchman to couple and uncouple this engine and the cars to be moved, and in this instance had caused the engine to be stopped at about 12 feet from the freight car to be coupled, and had stepped down from the engine and had taken the link therefrom, and had reached the freight car, and had just raised the pin to insert the link, when, without his order or knowledge, or any signal whatever, the engine was moved slowly down upon him, and his hand was caught between the freight car and the goose-neck coupling-iron which projected from the rear end of the engine, and was crushed and mangled.

The engine used was a common passenger engine, and had been used by the plaintiff for this purpose for 16 days, and when first employed he had been instructed as to its use in such coupling, and understood it perfectly, and its use in such coupling was safe and harmless to the switchman using proper care. In many large yards, where much switching was to be done, what was called a switch-engine was used, which had not this goose-neck projection, and was made with the top sloping backwards, so that the engineer or fireman could look back and see the person doing the coupling. Such an engine had at one time been used in this yard.

The gravamen of the complaint and the argument is that these companies furnished this unsuitabie engine with this dangerous goose-neck projection by which he was injured, and that if they had used the engine specially constructed for and adapted to such use, and required by the amount of switching to be done in such a yard, the plaintiff would not have been injured. The duty of railway companies to furnish proper and safe machinery and other appliances, and their liability for injury to their employes occasioned by their neglect to do so, have become elementary principles. But the projecting goose-neck of this passenger engine was not the proximate cause of the injury in this instance. It was only the...