Gray v. Red Lake Falls Lumber Company
| Decision Date | 13 December 1901 |
| Docket Number | 12,804 - (94) |
| Citation | 88 N.W. 24,85 Minn. 24 |
| Parties | ALBERT GRAY v. RED LAKE FALLS LUMBER COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Red Lake county to recover $15,000 for personal injuries. The case was tried before Watts, J and a jury, which rendered a verdict in favor of plaintiff for $3,000. From an order denying a motion for judgment in its favor notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial defendant appealed. Affirmed.
Incompetent Fellow Servant.
A master is required by law to provide his servants competent fellow servants, with whom they are associated in the performance of the work of their employment. If a servant complains to and notifies the master that a fellow servant with whom he is so associated is incompetent and unfit for the work in which they are jointly engaged, and the master promises to replace the incompetent with a competent workman, in consequence of which he is induced to remain in the master's service, the complaining servant may continue in such service for a reasonable time, to enable the master to fulfil his agreement, during which time he does not assume the risks incident to or arising from such incompetency, unless they are so obvious and imminent that a person of ordinary care and prudence would not incur them; but it does not necessarily follow that because he does not, as a matter of law, assume such risks, he may not be chargeable with contributory negligence with respect to his own conduct.
Incompetent Fellow Servant -- Assuming Risk of Remaining.
In actions, founded in this principle of the law, to recover damages for injury to the complaining servant, the question whether the risks are so obvious and imminent that a person of ordinary care and prudence would not incur them by continuing in the work associated with the incompetent servant, and whether the complaining servant is chargeable with contributory negligence, are ordinarily questions of fact for a jury to determine.
Verdict Sustained by Evidence.
Evidence examined, and held to present issues for the determination of a jury with respect to both those questions, and that it sustains their verdict.
F. A. Grady and Montague & Morrison, for appellant.
Halvor Steenerson and Charles Loring, for respondent.
This was an action to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of defendant. Plaintiff had a verdict in the court below, and defendant appealed from an order denying its motion for a new trial.
The facts are as follows: Defendant is a corporation engaged in the operation of a sawmill at Red Lake Falls. In the operation of this mill, and in obtaining logs to be sawed and manufactured into lumber, it employs a large number of laborers, both at its mill and in the woods. For some time prior to the date of his injury plaintiff was in the employ of defendant as a "log decker," and was associated in and about the performance of his work with a colaborer or fellow servant named Cook. At the time in question plaintiff and Cook were engaged in "skidding" or "decking" logs. This work consisted in taking logs as they were brought in from the woods, unloading them at a skidway, and, by means of a large chain and a team of horses, rolling them, one by one, along the skidway into a pile. Plaintiff's duties required his presence at the top of the pile, to adjust the logs as they came up; and the duties of the man Cook were to adjust and arrange the chain properly about the logs on the skidway, so that they would roll along it and up the pile of other logs evenly, and also, by means of a cant hook, to guide the logs up the pile, so that when they reached the top they would be on a line with the other logs.
It is claimed that the accident resulting in plaintiff's injury was occasioned by the incompetency, inexperience, and negligence of the man Cook; that he improperly and carelessly adjusted the chain about one of the logs so being "decked," by reason of which, as it reached the top of the pile where plaintiff was at work, and because of his failure to guide the log properly up the pile, plaintiff's foot was crushed, necessitating its amputation. The substantive charge of negligence is that defendant was informed of the incompetency of Cook by plaintiff, and that to induce plaintiff to remain in its employ, associated with and assisted by him, defendant promised that Cook would be replaced by a competent workman; that in consequence of which promise and in reliance thereon plaintiff continued in its employ, and was injured by reason of the unfitness and negligence of Cook.
The evidence tends to show that Cook was incompetent and inexperienced, that plaintiff informed defendant of the fact and that he threatened to abandon the work and leave defendant's service unless he was furnished a competent helper. ...
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