Jenkins v. St. Paul City Railway Company
| Decision Date | 09 October 1908 |
| Docket Number | 15,632 - (106) |
| Parties | FRANCIS E. JENKINS v. ST. PAUL CITY RAILWAY COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Ramsey county to recover $25,600 for injuries alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff while in defendant's employ. The case was tried before Kelly, J., who instructed the jury to render a verdict in favor of defendant. From an order denying plaintiff's motion to set aside the verdict and for a new trial, he appealed. Affirmed.
Res Ipsa Loquitur.
The application of the maxim res ipsa loquitur does not ordinarily depend upon the relation between the parties except indirectly, so far as that relation defines the measure of duty imposed on the defendant. Under certain circumstances it may apply in an action brought by a servant against a master for injury caused by an agency of the master.
Res Ipsa Loquitur -- Query.
Quaere -- whether it would so apply where the dangerous agency was in the actual physical control of the experienced servant and in operation by him?
Res Ipsa Loquitur -- Presumption.
The maxim at most raises a prima facie case of negligence, which is rebuttable. No presumption of negligence necessarily follows the plaintiff through the case, so as to compel the submission of the question of fact to the jury.
Machinery -- Duty of Carrier.
An electric passenger carrier fulfils its duty, so far as the controller of an electric car is concerned, if the controller is shown to have been of standard character, made by a reputable manufacturer, in good condition, and to have been subjected to such inspection as is reasonable and practicable. The carrier is required to inspect with adequate care, but not to dismantle complicated machinery for purposes of inspection.
Evidence.
Here plaintiff, a man of at least ordinary intelligence, an instructed and experienced motorman, was injured while operating an electric car for the defendant at a terminal where the cars turned round a loop. The car ran upon the curve of the loop at full speed and was derailed and capsized. Thereby plaintiff received the injuries here complained of. The issue was whether a shock of electricity passing through him from his left hand, on the handle of the controller, and through his foot, resting upon a metallic part of the car, produced temporary paralysis, by reason of which he was deprived of control of his car. It is held:
That the presumption of negligence conceded was rebutted by affirmative testimony, inter alia, as to the safe use of the car for twenty days before and months after the occurrence of the accident, during which the car was shown to have been in the same condition as at the time of the accident, and by the facts shown as to its purchase and inspection.
P. D. Scannell and Morton Barrows, for appellant.
N. M. Thygeson and W. H. Bennett, for respondent.
Plaintiff and appellant, a motorman, was operating, for the defendant and respondent, an electric car at a terminal where the car was turned around by means of a loop. A man of at least ordinary intelligence, he received the instruction usually given by defendant to its trainmen and had been in its service for more than a year. The car ran upon the curve of the loop at full speed and was derailed and capsized. Thereby plaintiff received the injuries here complained of.
Plaintiff's contention was as follows: He was seated upon his stool, and was grasping with his left hand the handle of the controller; his hand being in contact partially with the brass and partially with the wood. His right hand was grasping the metal handle of the brake. His right foot was resting upon the dog of the hand brake, which may or may not have been in contact with the ratchet. He had upon his hands a pair of cotton gloves, being very much soiled, and the palms being impregnated with dirt, oil, and sweat. He wore cotton stockings and leather shoes. His current was nearly at the maximum, if not quite. He received a shock of electricity which froze his hands to the handles. By reason of the temporary paralysis of his arms he was deprived of control of his car and prevented from shutting off the current and applying the brakes so as to reduce the speed. Defendant was charged with negligence in failing to properly furnish and maintain reasonably safe appliances and instrumentalities with which to perform his work, and in failing to caution and warn the plaintiff of the hazards to which the performance of his duties exposed him and which were unknown to him.
The defendant contends that it was not negligent in these respects, and that plaintiff did not in fact receive the shock of electricity at or immediately prior to the accident, but was asleep at his post, and negligently ran his car at full speed upon the curve.
The controller was the apparatus which governed the current from the trolley wire overhead used in operating the car. It consisted of a central, movable part, known as a "barrel," upon which were little copper blades, called "conductors," which, as the barrel revolved, made contact with stationary "fingers" and sent the current through the parts in various combinations. It was surrounded by a casing or frame made of sheet iron. This was lined with a nonconducting material -- asbestos -- three-eighths of an inch thick. For purposes of this appeal it will be assumed that this metal controller casing or frame was liable to become charged with electricity; that such charge of the controller casing endangered the motorman, unless it was kept sufficiently grounded; that if the grounding of the controller casing was sufficiently interrupted the motorman could receive a shock in the manner testified to by plaintiff at the trial. The function of the ground wire was (1) to act as a means of escape -- as a waste pipe, as it were -- for discharging into the earth the surplus or waste current from the interior of the controller, and also (2) to discharge into the earth any current which might have leaked into the frame of the controller. A further device for grounding, put in by the defendant company, was a metallic brace attached to the back of the controller and passed to the metallic air brake controller frame, to which it was attached. It was fastened by a steel screw to the casing. If for any reason the contact with the frame by the strap became inadequate to ground the surplus electric current, danger would not be avoided by the fact that it was subsequently attached to the brake. The case was twice tried in the district court. At the first trial the jury disagreed. On the second trial, at the close of all the testimony, the court directed a verdict for the defendant. The propriety of that order is the question on this appeal.
1. The plaintiff himself testified to the fact that his hands were frozen to the handles and as to the places on his hands and feet where he had been burned by the current. The gloves he wore were produced in court. His testimony and that of other witnesses further tended to show that he had obeyed signals to stop for passengers at points so near the place of injury as to tend to negative the defendant's contention that he was asleep. It is true that plaintiff's testimony as to the stopping was controverted by witnesses for the defendant. If this were all there were to the case, the issue should clearly have been submitted to the jury.
2. Plaintiff also introduced expert evidence which, he argues, showed the insufficiency of the grounding of the casing. Two experiments were made on the car, which had been brought in front of the trial courthouse for the purpose. Of these, the first was the "bell test." The expert placed one wire test." He expert placed one wire from a dry battery with a voltage of one or one and a half on the controller; placed another wire at different times on the brass part of the air brake, not the handle, on the handle of the air brake, on the hand brake staff, on its support, and on the dog used to set the hand brake. The current was communicated, but the bell connected by a wire to the frame did not ring. The second experiment was a "magneto" test. It was made by means of a small dynamo discharging a current of "anywhere between three hundred and five hundred" volts. When the connection was made between the points stated, and the current turned on, "the bell barely tinkled." These experiments were adduced to show that there was not sufficient "contact" between the casing and the brake frame through the metallic strap or brace previously described. Plaintiff's own experts so testified. They testified, also, that it was thus proved that the ground wire designed to ground the controller casing was "either absent or a very poor one."
For many reasons, some of which only will be presently set forth we are at a loss to comprehend what strength this testimony adds to plaintiff's case. It is true the controller was in the same condition at the time of the beginning of plaintiff's experiments as it was at the first trial and as at the time of the accident. Upon critical examination of the record, it appears that the admission of counsel for plaintiff that this was the case was not clear, although the trial court evidently regarded it as sufficient. If it be disregarded, we are of the opinion that unimpeached testimony affirmatively showed such to be the fact. None the less the experiments were not performed upon the car in the condition it was at the time of the accident. For plaintiff's expert, finding the strap screwed up "fairly tight," or so that he "could loosen it with a small wrench," testified that before the first electrical test was made ...
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