General Tire & Rubber Co. v. Darnell, 45283
| Decision Date | 31 March 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 45283,45283 |
| Citation | 221 So.2d 104 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | The GENERAL TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY v. Albert DARNELL. |
Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens & Cannada, Jackson, Threadgill & Smith, Columbus, for appellant.
Lipscomb, Barksdale, Steen & Caraway, Jackson, H. T. Carter, Billy Jordan, Columbus, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court of Lowndes County in favor of plaintiff-appellee against defendant-appellant in a personal injury case. We hold that plaintiff's evidence failed to make a jury issue on the question of liability and the court should have sustained defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
The established rule is that when the court considers whether the defendant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law, the court should consider the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, disregard any evidence on the part of defendant in conflict with that favorable to plaintiff, and if the evidence and reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom would support a verdict for plaintiff, the jury verdict should not be disturbed.
Albert Darnell, plaintiff, and two other employees of Dill & Norris Sheet Metal & Heating Company were installing air conditioning equipment on the premises of the General Tire & Rubber Company, the defendant. The installation work was being done on the second floor which was reached by an industrial or freight elevator of standard design. The doors of the elevator are metal and together weigh about twelve or fourteen hundred pounds. These doors are counterbalanced and are opened by pushing up on a handle on the upper door and closed by pulling downward on a strap attached to the upper door, which lowers the upper door and raises the lower door. There are two straps attached to the upper door, one on the inside for use within the elevator, and one on the outside for use in closing the doors upon leaving the elevator. Plaintiff and his co-employees used the elevator for two and one half days before plaintiff was injured. Plaintiff had operated the elevator several times each day. He knew that it was hard to get the doors started and that when they started closing they came together with a 'bang.' They worked easier at some times than they did at others. Plaintiff said the doors would hang, and that sometimes one man pulling on the strap would close the doors and at other times it would take two men to close them. At the time plaintiff was injured he and his two co-employees had placed in the elevator a piece of air conditioning equipment. One of his co-employees held the piece of equipment. Plaintiff stood facing the elevator doors and the other co-employee was to his left. According to plaintiff both of them took hold of the inside strap with both hands since the door was hanging and when it got loose 'it came with such force it caught my right hand in between them two doors * * *' Plaintiff testified that he did not know what caused the door to hang or be hard to move but he said he knew it was not working right. Plaintiff testified that the door was simple to operate; that he knew when they pulled the strap that the doors would come together and that if his hand was between them it would be mashed. He could not give any reason for his hand being between the doors except that 'it was an accident that my hand was caught in there.' Plaintiff offered an expert mechanical engineer who testified, in his opinion, that if the doors were hard to pull, it could be due to either a misalignment of the tracks on which the door runs, lack of lubrication, or misalignment of the pulley of the linkage system between the two doors. Assuming that there was a defect in the doors that caused them to hang or be hard to get started, there is no evidence that this defect was the proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries. Why or how plaintiff's hand got between the doors is not explained, although plaintiff was repeatedly asked that question. Plaintiff's expert testified that once the doors of this type elevator get started, they move considerably easier.
In sum, the evidence favorable to plaintiff is sufficient to justify the jury in finding, (1) the elevator doors were hard to get started (there is no testimony that the doors hung after movement was started by pulling on the strap), (2) when they did start the doors moved easier and came together with a bang, (3) the doors had been hard to start for the two...
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Hall v. Hilbun
...the Court quoted and restated the principle of law applying to motions for directed verdicts, as was set out in General Tire & Rubber Co. v. Darnell, 221 So.2d 104 (Miss.1969): "The established rule is that when the court considers whether the defendant is entitled to a judgment as a matter......
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...an elevator "was bound to use the care required of an ordinarily prudent person under the circumstances"); General Tire & Rubber Co. v. Darnell, 221 So.2d 104, 107 (Miss.1969) ("The owner or occupier of business premises [where plaintiff was injured by elevator doors] owes business invitees......
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Janssen Pharmaceutica, Inc. v. Bailey, No. 2002-CA-00736-SCT.
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