Gusman v. Caffery Central Refinery And Railroad Company, Limited

• Decision Date: 26 April 1897
• Docket Number: 12,475
• Citation: 49 La.Ann. 1264,22 So. 742
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: P. L. GUSMAN AND MRS. H. A. GUSMAN v. CAFFERY CENTRAL REFINERY AND RAILROAD COMPANY, LIMITED, ET AL

22 So. 742

49 La.Ann. 1264

P. L. GUSMAN AND MRS. H. A. GUSMAN v. CAFFERY CENTRAL REFINERY AND RAILROAD COMPANY, LIMITED, ET AL

No. 12,475

Supreme Court of Louisiana

April 26, 1897

Submitted April 14, 1897

APPEAL from the Twenty-fourth Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Mary. Allen, J.

D Caffery & Son, for Plaintiffs, Appellants.

Farrar Jonas & Kruttschnitt, for Defendants, Appellees.

OPINION

NICHOLLS C.J.

Plaintiffs have appealed from the action of the District Court in sustaining an exception that plaintiffs' petition discloses "no cause of action" and decreeing that their demand be rejected.

In the petition in the case plaintiffs alleged that on or about July 1, 1894, James E. Gusman, a son of petitioners, from the marriage between them, was employed by Ernest Wailles, an officer of the Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company Limited, and of the Franklin & Abbeville Railroad Company, as fireman on a locomotive (owned by the latter company, or by both of them), then used and operated by them both in the business in which they were engaged for their common benefit, as would thereafter be more fully set out. That Wailles was local manager of the Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company, Limited, and also manager of the Franklin & Abbeville Railroad Company, and was in full charge and authority over the Caffery Central Refinery, owned by the former corporation and operated by them, and was also in full control over the cars, operation and operatives of the Franklin & Abbeville Railroad Company, and had full power and authority to employ and discharge all persons employed in and about said Caffery Central Refinery and the cars and locomotives of the Franklin & Abbeville Railroad Company, and especially to employ petitioners' said son. That the Caffery Central Refinery is a large factory for the manufacture of sugar from cane and syrup, situated in the parish of St. Mary, near the town of Franklin, on the extensive grounds on which the Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company, Limited, have constructed and built numerous railroad switches and tracks for the hauling of cane and syrup from their said factory; that the Franklin & Abbeville Railroad Company is a mere adjunct to the said Caffery Central Refinery & Railroad Company, Limited, as it has been conducted since its organization for no other purpose than to enable the said Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company to lay a road to the sugar plantations from which they receive their supply of sugar cane, and to haul the said cane to the said factory; that the railroad built by the Franklin and Abbeville Company is never operated in any other business than that of the said Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company, Limited, and never except at the times and seasons when the said company is in operation; that practically the whole of the stock of the Franklin & Abbeville Railroad Company is owned by the Caffery Central Refinery Company; that the Franklin & Abbeville Railroad Company is controlled and operated, and all their affairs directed by the Caffery Central Refinery Company and was so controlled and operated at the time of the employment of petitioners' son and of the injury received by him as stated below. That the management of both corporations is one and the same and their business is so completely blended and inseparable that although they are informed the pay of their son was charged upon their books or account to the Franklin & Abbeville Railroad Company, yet they charge that the Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company, Limited, was equally the master of their son in his said employment, or really and substantially wholly so, as the said Franklin & Abbeville Railroad Company has only a nominal and fictitious existence as an independent corporation; their son being, at all times, under the control and direction of the officers of the Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company, Limited, and all his duties being really, though not nominally, for the service of the Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company, Limited.

That the duties of their son in his said employment were principally to keep up the fires of the said locomotive and to assist whenever required, or whenever circumstances made it necessary, in doing the braking on the train hauled by said locomotive; and that the business of said locomotive was to haul cars and do switch work over the numerous tracks and switches on the grounds of the Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company, Limited, and over the switch running from the tracks of the Southern Pacific Company to the Caffery Central Refinery.

That on the grounds of the Caffery Central Refinery, the Caffery Central Refinery and Railroad Company, Limited, had erected prior to July 1, 1894, a frame or derrick over one of the said switches, which frame consisted of two upright posts some twenty feet high planted on either side of the said switch and of a cross beam of heavy timber standing at right angles over and across the said switch and attached to and supported by the said upright posts, which cross beam stood about four and a half or four feet above the top of a box car of the ordinary height; that the said cross beam was too low to permit a brakeman standing erect on the top of such a box car to pass beneath it in safety, and that only by stooping or dodging could the same be avoided by a brakeman in such position, all to the full knowledge of said corporation. That the said frame was erected for the purpose of loading and unloading barrels from and on the flat cars, a block and...