Huntsville Knitting Co. v. Butner

• Decision Date: 16 November 1916
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 896
• Citation: 198 Ala. 528,73 So. 907
• Parties: HUNTSVILLE KNITTING CO. v. BUTNER.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

73 So. 907

198 Ala. 528

HUNTSVILLE KNITTING CO. v. BUTNER.

8 Div. 896

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 16, 1916

Rehearing Denied Jan. 18, 1917

Appeal from Circuit Court, Madison County; R.C. Brickell, Judge.

Action by Mason Butner, by his next friend, against the Huntsville Knitting Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Cooper & Cooper, of Huntsville, for appellant.

Taylor & Watts, and R.E. Smith, all of Huntsville, for appellee.

ANDERSON C.J.

This case went to the jury upon counts 2, 3, and 5, the other two counts having been charged out of the case by the trial court.

Count 2 is defective, and was subject to the defendant's demurrer. The negligence or breach of duty averred should always be the proximate cause of the injury. Here the negligence charged was that Estes, the superintendent ordered the plaintiff, a young and inexperienced employé, to operate a dangerous wringer machine, knowing that the same was dangerous and without informing the said employé of the danger of operating same, and without instructing him as to the safest and best way to do so, yet the cause of the plaintiff's injury is ascribed to the fact that the floor was wet, and caused the plaintiff's foot to slip while he was applying the brake. From aught that appears therefrom the direct and proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury was the wet floor, which caused the plaintiff's foot to slip while applying the brake, and it was not due to any danger from operating the machine. In other words, whether the machine was or was not a dangerous or complicated one the injury resulted, not from any ignorance or failure to instruct the plaintiff, but because the floor, which was not an inherent part of the machine, was wet and caused his foot to slip. Nor does the count charge that Estes knew that the floor was wet, or negligently failed to ascertain this fact, or negligently ordered him to go to a place to work which was or could have been dangerous aside from the danger of the machine itself. It charges Estes with ordering the plaintiff to operate a machine, knowing that the operation of same was dangerous, and without warning him of the danger, and without instructing him, but the injury, as averred, was not caused by the dangerous character of the machine and of the plaintiff's ignorance as to the operation of same. "Where two distinct, successive causes, unrelated in operation, to some extent contribute to an injury, it is settled that where there is an intervening and direct cause, a prior and remote cause cannot be made the basis for recovery of damages, if such prior cause did no more than furnish the condition, or give rise to the occasion, by which the injury was possible. It seems to be sound in principle and well settled by authority that where it is admitted or found that two distinct, successive causes, unrelated to their operation, conjoin to produce a given injury, one of them must be the proximate, and the other the remote, cause of the injury, and the court, in passing on the facts as found or admitted to exist, must regard the proximate as the efficient and consequent cause." Garrett v. L. & N.R.R., 71 So. 685, and cases there cited.

The third count was not subject to the defendant's demurrer.

The special pleas, to which demurrers were sustained, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7, are bad, such of them as merely deny the ignorance and inexperience of the plaintiff...