J. H. W. Steele Co. v. Dover

• Decision Date: 27 May 1914
• Docket Number: (No. 5279.)
• Citation: 170 S.W. 809
• Parties: J. H. W. STEELE CO. v. DOVER.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

170 S.W. 809

J. H. W. STEELE CO. v. DOVER.

(No. 5279.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. San Antonio.

May 27, 1914.

On Motion for Rehearing, October 21, 1914.

Rehearing Denied November 18, 1914.

Appeal from District Court, Galveston County; Clay S. Briggs, Judge.

Action by M. F. Dover against the J. H. W. Steele Company. From judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed conditionally on rehearing.

Baker, Botts, Parker & Garwood, of Houston, John L. Darrouzet, of Galveston, John T. Garrison, of Houston, and Terry, Cavin & Mills, of Galveston, for appellant. Barkley & Green, of Houston, and Marsene Johnson, of Galveston, for appellee.

MOURSUND, J.

Appellee sued appellant to recover damages in the sum of $40,000 for injuries sustained on or about February 20, 1912, alleging that such injuries were proximately caused by negligence of appellant in furnishing defective tools to work with and an unsafe place to work, and in failing to inspect the tools with which plaintiff worked, and that while plaintiff, as foreman in charge of a gang of men, was unloading steel rails from a ship, the hooks or tongs that were used in unloading said rails were worn, and the handle sprung, and were weak, defective, and worn slick. Appellant answered by general denial, pleas of assumed risk, and contributory negligence. The case went to trial on July 2, 1913, and resulted in a verdict and judgment for plaintiff for $20,000.

By the fifth assignment complaint is made of the following portion of the charge:

"It is the duty of the master to exercise ordinary care to furnish the servant reasonably safe tools and appliances with which to perform the duties assigned to him, and with which he is called upon to work. It is also the duty of the master to use ordinary care to see that such tools and appliances are kept in a reasonably safe condition. The servant has a right to rely upon the assumption that the tools and appliances with which he is called upon to work are reasonably safe, and he is not required to use ordinary care to see whether this has been done or not."

One objection made by appellant is that such charge imposes too great a burden upon the master in that it requires of him the exercise of ordinary care to see that tools and appliances are kept in a reasonably safe condition, thus imposing upon the master the duty of inspection as to common tools and appliances. Another is that it instructs the jury that Dover, though a foreman or vice principal, was not under obligations to inspect any character of tool furnished. Appellant excepted to the paragraph containing said portion of the charge, but only upon the ground that "it does not charge the law as applicable to the facts shown by the testimony in this case." Such exception was entirely too general, and cannot be held sufficient to sustain an assignment of error based thereon. The assignment is therefore overruled.

The sixth assignment also complains of paragraph 3 of the charge on the ground that a portion thereof is upon the weight of the evidence, and that it leaves it to the jury to determine what the master's duties are. The charge was not excepted to upon the grounds urged, and therefore the assignment is overruled.

By the seventh assignment complaint is made of paragraph 10 of the charge. The first proposition reads as follows:

"This charge is erroneous in that it submits for the determination of the jury the question whether or not the tongs were generally defective, and not reasonably safe for the use in the manner and for the purpose for which they were designed or intended; the plaintiff having pleaded specially that the defect in the tongs, if any, was by reason of the fact that the tongs were worn slick and the handle sprung."

Appellant has not set out, in the statements under assignments questioning the correctness of the charge, the exceptions filed thereto in the lower court, upon which the assignments are respectively based. We have examined the exceptions contained in the transcript, but find none raising this objection, although three separate exceptions are directed at paragraph 10.

The second proposition reads as follows:

"Said charge is erroneous in that it instructs the jury that it was the duty of appellant absolutely to furnish their foreman, appellee, with tongs that were reasonably safe, regardless of the fact that the tongs so furnished was a common tool; the fitness of same could be as readily ascertained by the appellee as by the appellant."

This objection was presented by an exception to the charge, and therefore will be considered. The charge, in addition to other matters, required a finding that the defendant knew of the condition of the tongs, or by the exercise of ordinary care would have known thereof, before the injury, and failed to furnish plaintiff with tongs that were reasonably safe for use in the service for which they were intended to be used. Such charge imposes the burden upon defendant of inspecting the tongs when first furnished to the employés, and making such further inspection, while they were being used, as would be required in the exercise of ordinary care. Appellant's contention, as enunciated in the above proposition, is that the tongs was a common tool, the fitness of which could be as readily ascertained by plaintiff as by defendant. But the question was submitted to the jury, in another paragraph of the charge, whether the tongs was a simple tool, and there can be no doubt that, under the authorities, it cannot be said, as a matter of law, that tongs weighing 35 pounds, and used for the purpose of clamping and holding steel rails, weighing about 900 pounds, while same are lifted from the hold of a ship and unloaded, is a simple tool which a man of ordinary prudence would not inspect as a precaution against injury to the servant. Pope v. Railway (Sup.) 155 S. W. 1175; Drake v. San Antonio & Aransas Pass Ry. Co., 99 Tex. 240, 89 S. W. 407; G., H. & S. A. Ry. v. Cherry, 44 Tex. Civ. App. 344, 98 S. W. 898; St. Louis & S. W. Ry. v. Schuler, 46 Tex. Civ. App. 356, 102 S. W. 783; H. & T. C. Ry. v. Patrick, 50 Tex. Civ. App. 491, 109 S. W. 1100; Freeman v. Starr, 138 S. W. 1152; Buchanan & Gilder v. Blanchard, 127 S. W. 1153. We think, however, that, regardless of the charge directly submitting the issue whether the tongs was a simple tool, the charge attacked by this assignment was in itself strictly in accord with the decision in the Drake Case, above cited.

The third proposition is lengthy, and the latter portion seems to convey just the opposite meaning to that intended, but we construe it as a contention in substance that the charge is erroneous in permitting a recovery if the tongs became defective while the work was being done. The frequency of inspection required depends upon the nature of the tool and the purpose for which it is used, and the jury was authorized to find, from the evidence in this case, that an inspection should have been made after the tongs had been in use, and that such an inspection would have disclosed the defect. Jernigan v. Houston Ice & B. Co., 33 Tex. Civ. App. 501, 77 S. W. 260; Labatt, Master & Servant (2d Ed.) §§ 1056 and 1060.

The eighth assignment complains of the following portion of the charge:

"If you believe from the evidence that the hooks or tongs attached to the rail that fell were worn slick, or the handles sprung, and were thereby defective and insufficient to hold such rail, and you further believe from the evidence that such defective condition, if any existed, was known to the plaintiff, or in the ordinary discharge of his duties must necessarily have come to his knowledge."

In support of the contention that said charge places too great a burden upon appellant, we are cited to the case of Industrial Cotton Oil Co. v. Lial, 164 S. W. 40, in which a similar charge was criticized by this court, in view of another trial; the case being reversed upon other grounds. In the case of Railway v. Adams, 121 S. W. 876, a similar charge was held not subject to the objection made in this case, and a writ of error was refused by the Supreme Court. It does not necessarily follow that the charge approved by the Supreme Court nor the holding that it did not place too great a burden upon the appellant, for we think the Supreme Court might well have refused the writ on the ground that the charge stated a correct proposition of law in directing a finding for defendant, if the jury found the facts mentioned, and therefore was not affirmatively erroneous. Parks v. Traction Co., 100 Tex. 224, 94 S. W. 331, 98 S. W. 1100; Railway v. Lester, 99 Tex. 220, 89 S. W. 752. We still think the expression, "Or in the ordinary discharge of his duties must necessarily have come to his knowledge," is justly subject to criticism on the ground that such a finding would be equivalent to finding the existence of actual knowledge. The test is, not what knowledge the servant necessarily acquired, but that which an ordinarily prudent man, under like circumstances, would have acquired. In the case of Adams v. Railway, 101 Tex. 5, 102 S. W. 906, the court said:

"We think he does assume the risk of such defects as fall under his observation, and of such patent defects as a man of ordinary capacity and prudence would necessarily observe in them, and in using them to do his work."

In the case of Peck v. Peck, 99 Tex. 10, 87 S. W. 248, Justice Williams, after quoting from the Hannig Case, 91 Tex. 347, 43 S. W. 508, said:

"If this needed any elaboration, it was furnished by the reference to the cases cited in that opinion, from which is seen that a servant must be treated as having `necessarily acquired knowledge' of those dangers, although arising from the negligence of the master, which were obvious and open to him in the doing of his work, which, in other words, ordinarily prudent persons would have learned under like circumstances in rendering the same service."

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