Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Bolton

• Decision Date: 16 June 1897
• Citation: 41 S.W. 442
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. v. BOLTON.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

41 S.W. 442

ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. v. BOLTON.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

June 16, 1897.

Appeal from circuit court, Gibson county; John R. Bond, Judge.

Action by T. A. Bolton against the Illinois Central Railroad Company for personal injuries caused by defendant's negligence. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.

J. P. Rhodes and Fentress & Cooper, for appellant. Deason & Rankin, for appellee.

BEARD, J.

The defendant in error, Bolton, was one of a number of section hands of the plaintiff in error, engaged at the time he received the injury for which he sues in this action in unloading some heavy piling timbers from one of the cars of plaintiff in error. Among the hands employed with Bolton doing this work was one Crocker, who also was an apprentice foreman, and as such at the time of the injury had charge of the crew, the section foreman being temporarily absent. The defendant in error thus defines the office and duties of an apprentice: "He is one of the section hands who is learning to be a foreman. In the absence of the foreman, he has charge of the crew, and his duties and authority are the same as those of the section foreman. * * * They stand an examination. They get better wages than the other hands. They have the authority to discharge hands, and the hands are subject to their authority, in the absence of the regular boss." The story of the injury, as told by the defendant in error, is as follows: "I was standing in the car, holding up the timber by a crossbar. Jim Butler was helping me. He was at the other end of a piece of timber, and, just as we threw the timber over the side of the car, Coley Crocker, who was rolling down timber to us, rolled one down over on me, and it fell on my leg and foot," etc. The testimony of Crocker as to the accident is told in these words: "I was helping unload the car. I was not giving any orders. We had worked till we had gotten down to the floor. Lemmons, the boss, told us to unload the car, and he went down to the store to get a tape line. Lemmons did not put me in charge of the hands. Lemmons was not gone but a few minutes. The accident occurred while he was gone. Bolton and the other hands were throwing the timber over the side of the car, and I was placing them in position for them. I used a crowbar to prize them apart so that they could get hold of them, and while I was prizing them apart one of the piles rolled down and caught Bolton's foot. I was working and doing the work in the usual way that such work is done; was careful in doing the work." After the court had given his general instruction to the jury, the defendant below submitted the following special instruction, and asked that it be given, to wit: "If the proof shows that Crocker was the apprentice and in charge of the section crew at the time of the accident, but was also doing the work of a section hand, and the injury resulted from the negligence of said Crocker while doing said...