Hall v. N.Y., N. H. & H. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 April 1906
• Citation: 27 R.I. 525,65 A. 278
• Parties: HALL v. NEW YORK, N. H. & H. R. CO.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

65 A. 278

27 R.I. 525

HALL

v. NEW YORK, N. H. & H. R. CO.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

April 20, 1906.

Action by Nelson R. Hall against the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company. Verdict for plaintiff. Defendant moves for a new trial. Denied.

Argued before DOUGLAS, C. J., and DUBOIS, BLODGETT, and PARKHURST, JJ.

Irving Champlin and John J. Lace, Jr., for plaintiff. Lewis A. Waterman, for defendant.

DUBOIS, J. This is an action of assumpsit brought to recover the sum of $1,573.75, with interest, for services rendered during a period of 20 weeks, and for supplies furnished by the plaintiff, a physician and surgeon, to the defendant's employé, a carpenter, who was injured, in the course of his employment, at its power station in Warren, R. I., by steam and hot water in an accidental explosion. The defendant denies liability, and claims that it never engaged the services of the plaintiff. After verdict for the plaintiff, the defendant has petitioned for a new trial upon the grounds that the verdict is against the evidence, that the judge who presided at the trial erred in his rulings and charge to the jury, and that the amount of the verdict is excessive.

1. It appears that on December 6, 1900, the plaintiff was called to attend Jared E. Smith, the injured man, by the defendant's station agent at Warren. No evidence was introduced tending to prove his authority in the premises, but the plaintiff having caused the sufferer to be removed from the place of accident to his boarding house in Warren, having sent for the wife of the patient, who was at their home in New Haven, Conn., having procured the services of a trained nurse to assist him, and, after attending to the immediate necessities of his patient, prepared and sent to New Haven, where the principal offices of the defendant company are located, by Mr. Vinal, the foreman under whom said Smith was working at the time of the accident, the following report:

"Warren, R. I., December 7, 1900, 11:30 A. M.

"On the morning of December 6th, 1900, I was called to the power station in Warren, by Mr. Schultz, station agent, to attend to Jared E. Smith, who had been scalded by steam and hot water which came from condenser pipe. The scalds appear to be of the second degree, and involve both legs and the lower third of both thighs. The patient now suffers from prolonged shock and is much exhausted. Nelson Read Hall, M. D.

"Miss M. C. Pine, trained nurse, is in attendance. N. R. H."

What Mr. Vinal did with the report does not appear in evidence, but at the trial the defendant produced the same and used it in cross-examination of the plaintiff. No explanation was offered in behalf of the defendant as to how or when it obtained possession of the same, and in the absence of such explanation it is not unreasonable to infer that it was delivered to the defendant with reasonable celerity. What information was thereby communicated to the defendant by the plaintiff? The facts that at Warren, R. I., on the day before its date, the physician had been called by Mr. Schultz, station agent, to the power station in Warren, to attend a person, whose name is given in full, who had been injured in the manner specifically set forth; the severity and location of the injury being technically described, and the condition of the sufferer also set out. And it is made to appear that a trained nurse is also in attendance. This was not merely an item of news to which the attention of the defendant was invited, nor was it a notice from Jared E. Smith, or in his behalf, calling attention to the fact that he was injured; it is a message from a doctor that he has been called by a station agent of the defendant to attend to, and is still in attendance upon, its severely injured employé; that he considers the sufferer his patient by virtue of that call, and has taken charge of him and placed a trained nurse in attendance. It is not a notice of services fully performed and completed, for it is not accompanied by a bill for the same. It is rather in the nature of a bulletin to the effect that an arduous surgical siege has been undertaken, with an account of the difficulties to be met and overcome. It is not contended in this case that it is beyond the power of the corporation to employ and pay for the services of physicians in case of injuries received by its employés in the discharge of their employment. But the defendant urges that: "The defendant does not owe to its injured employés the duty of providing medical treatment for them. If an employé was injured in the course of his employment and was away from home and friends, the defendant might be liable for an emergency call, but as soon as the emergency ceases the defendant's liability ceases." And that: "There was no contract on the part of the company to pay for the services of Dr. Hall to Smith. Mr. Schultz, the station agent, telephoned to Dr. Hall to attend a man who had been scalded." And also: "The doctor went with the injured man to his boarding house, and treated him there for 20 weeks. Clearly the telephone message from Mr. Schultz, if this was an employment of the doctor, was for the first visit only."

Assuming that the station agent was without any authority in the premises, or even that he was vested with authority to employ a physician for one visit only, if such were the facts, they were known to the defendant and unknown to the plaintiff. Their rules and regulations are not generally made public, and there is no evidence that the plaintiff had any knowledge concerning the actual authority of the station agent. But he did not content himself with relying upon any such authority; on the very next day he made his report to headquarters—to the source of authority. What was the duty of the defendant in the premises? To let the plaintiff remain ignorant of the truth of the invalidity of his employment in its behalf? To permit him to incur large expense and employ valuable time in a malodorous and repulsive employment in the faith that he would be compensated by a responsible company, while that company intended that he should be compelled to resort for payment to the nonresident injured mechanic, whose expenses would be greatly increased and whose resources would be greatly diminished, if not cut off, by this very accident, which would deprive him for a long time of the ability to perform his daily toil? The ordinary physician is not an eleemosynary institution, and, although he often does perform services for charity, it cannot be expected that he will compete with the hospitals, that are established for general public use. It was the duty of the defendant to early apprise the plaintiff of the true condition of affairs; to either disaffirm the act of its station agent in toto, or to explain the extent of his authority to the plaintiff in order to give him the opportunity to make further arrangements for treatment of the patient beyond the time of any authorized limited employment But the defendant did neither; it neither accepted nor rejected the services of the plaintiff under his supposed employment, but it elected to remain silent. What is the effect of silence in the circumstances of the case? It is an equitable axiom that he who remains silent when it is his duty to speak ought not to be allowed to speak when it is his duty to remain silent. There is also a species of estoppel in pals known as estoppel by silence, which arises in a case where a person, who by force of circumstances is under a duty to...