Hampton v. Pacific Elec. Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 01 June 1953 |
| Citation | 118 Cal.App.2d 263,257 P.2d 703 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | HAMPTON v. PACIFIC ELECTRIC RY. CO. Civ. 19251. |
C. W. Cornell, O. O. Collins, John R. Allport, Clyde C. Beery, Los Angeles, for appellant.
John M. Ennis and Robert M. Holstein, Los Angeles, for respondent.
Plaintiff, about 65 years of age, for many years employed by the Pacific Electric Railway as a conductor, was injured when he fell in descending from a loading platform of the company at its station in Azusa. Suing under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq., he was awarded substantial damages in a jury trial and following denial of its motion for a new trial the defendant company appeals.
The sole question is whether the evidence and proper inferences therefrom, viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, was such as to justify the determination by the jury that defendant failed to provide plaintiff with a safe place to work or in other words, that it was negligent with respect to that duty.
We can give a better recital of the facts by use of the accompanying photograph. It shows the major portion of the south side of the building. The door seen in the picture, which we will refer to as the south door, leads into the room of the station master. To the west is the freight room. At the west end of the freight room is a door which was locked with an inside bolt. On the north side of the building is a single track for use in loading and unloading cars. Also on the north side of the building is a broad platform, the height of the loading platform, from which loading and unloading may be done. This platform extends easterly from the westerly loading platform and leads into a ramp which meets the ground level near a door which is opposite the south door. The floor of the loading platform seen in the picture at the west end of the freight room is approximately three feet nine inches above the ground. A short distance above the ground is a stringer, four inches wide and twelve inches deep. On the day of the accident plaintiff reached the north side of the shed in a box motor attached to a box car. He alighted onto the platform, went to the west door of the freight room, found it locked, went to the south edge of the loading platform, eased himself down onto the stringer, placing one foot thereon, and in his attempt to reach the ground fell heavily when his foot slipped off the stringer.
There is no conflict of authority as to the applicable principles of law. Defendant had no liability except for negligence, and that has been the question in all the cases under the Federal Employers' Liability Act. The usual rules of negligence apply. In the cases where the employer is charged with a failure to provide the employee with a safe place to work, the question usually is whether an occurrence of the nature of that which caused injury to the employee was one known to or within the reasonable anticipation of the employer, that is to say, whether he knew or should have known that the conditions, facilities or instrumentalities provided were likely to be used in the manner in which they were used and which resulted in the injury.
It is axiomatic, as defendant says, that where the conditions and facilities of employment provide safety when made use of for the purpose for which they were intended, an employer cannot be held guilty of negligence in failing to provide against unexpected uses which would involve danger. This is the text of the cases cited by defendant. Brady v. Southern Ry. Co., 320 U.S. 476, 483, 64 S.Ct. 232, 88 L.Ed. 239, 245; Campbell v. Southern Pacific Company, 120 Or. 122, 250 P. 622; Hahn v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co., 157 Minn. 354, 196 N.W. 257; McDonald v. Fryberger, 133 Minn. 156, 46 N.W.2d 260; Reynolds v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 336 U.S. 207, 69 S.Ct. 507, 93 L.Ed. 618 619, 620.
We agree with defendant that when the station was constructed it was doubtless anticipated that employees would use the ramp in descending from the platform and that it was not reasonably to be anticipated that they would descend by means of the stringer, which was installed solely as a protection against injury by freight trucks. Under these circumstances the duty of the company would have been fulfilled, inasmuch as it was not negligence to overlook what was not reasonably foreseeable; but if the employees had developed the practice of descending from the platform by stepping onto the stringer, and if the company had knowledge of it, the question of foreseeability disappeared. Therefore, if the company had knowledge that the stringer was commonly used as plaintiff was using it, and that the ramp was not used in descending from the platform, it was under a duty to take reasonable measures to halt the practice or to remedy any conditions which rendered use of the stringer unsafe, just as it had a duty to provide a safe manner of getting down in the first instance.
The rule is stated in 39 C.J. p. 441, as follows: ...
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