Kann v. Meyer
| Decision Date | 20 December 1898 |
| Citation | 41 A. 1065,88 Md. 541 |
| Parties | KANN et al. v. MEYER. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from superior court of Baltimore city; Albert Ritchie, Judge.
Action by William Meyer against S. Kann Sons & Co. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.
Argued before MCSHERRY, C.J., and BRYAN, FOWLER, BRISCOE, BOYD PEARCE, and ROBERTS, JJ.
William L. Marbury and J. Markham Marshall, for appellants. William Colton, Edward L. Ward, and H. C. Shimer, for appellee.
The plaintiff brought suit against the defendants to recover damages for personal injuries received while repairing a freight elevator on the defendants' premises. He recovered a judgment of $5,000, and upon exceptions to the granting by the court of the plaintiff's first and third prayers, and the refusal to grant the defendants' third fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth prayers, and to the overruling of certain special exceptions, the defendants have appealed.
It appears from the record that the defendants, Sigmund Kann and Louis Kann, trading as S. Kann Sons & Co., were the owners of a certain building on South Broadway, in the city of Baltimore, in which they conducted a "department store." In this building there were two elevators,--one a passenger and the other a freight elevator,--running from the cellar to the top floors; the building being five or six stories high. The machinery of both elevators was located in the basement of the store, in what was called the "Elevator Room," and adjoining one to the other. These elevators, it is stated, were operated by a hydraulic pushing engine; the machinery of both elevators being the same, and consisting of a wheel about three feet in diameter over which the cables ran, moving the elevators up and down. The wheel was at the end of a piston rod, and as the passenger elevator ascended to the top floor the piston rod and wheels attached were elongated, so that it came in close proximity to the frame which supported the machinery of the freight elevator. The plaintiff is a machinist by trade, and was at the time of the injury in the employ of Bartlett & Hayward, Baltimore, also machinists, and had been sent by this firm on the day of the accident, at the request of the defendants, to make certain repairs on the freight elevator which had been broken. The declaration states that on the 8th of December, 1896, the frame or carriage of the freight elevator being broken and out of repair in the cellar or basement, the defendants procured and invited the plaintiff, who was a machinist and iron worker, to come upon their premises for the purpose of repairing and working on the broken freight elevator carriage or frame in the cellar or basement, and that it was then and there the duty of the defendants to exercise ordinary care and prudence to render and keep their premises reasonably safe for the performance by the plaintiff of the purpose or business in hand, and not to expose him to unnecessary risk or danger in the premises, and that, in default and neglect of their duty in the premises, the defendants did not exercise ordinary care and prudence to render and keep their premises reasonably safe for the performance by the plaintiff of the purpose or business in hand, and did expose him to unnecessary risk and danger in the premises, while in the exercise of ordinary care and prudence on his part, whereby and in consequence whereof the plaintiff was crushed, while engaged at work upon the frame or carriage of the freight elevator, by the wheels attached to the piston rod of the passenger elevator, in the cellar or basement, and was permanently injured and damaged about his back and sides, head, and limbs, confined to his home for a long period of time, made to suffer great physical pain and mental anguish, incapacitated from working at his trade of machinist or iron worker, and otherwise injured and damaged. It further appears that at the time of the accident the plaintiff was at work on the machinery of the freight elevator, facing another workman, with his back to the passenger elevator; that while in this position he was caught and pressed against the crossbar of the freight elevator by the elongation of the piston rod of the passenger elevator; that this piston rod was about four or five feet from the position they were at work when the elevator was in the basement, but when it ascended to the top floor the rod extended to about six inches of the crossbar between the two carriages. The case was tried before a jury, and, the judgment being for the plaintiff, the defendants have appealed.
It will be thus seen that the questions presented in this case are the usual ones in damage suits, and they are: First, whether the defendants were guilty of negligence, and, second, was the plaintiff guilty of such contributory negligence as would have warranted the court in withdrawing the case from the consideration of the jury? We have carefully examined the testimony as disclosed by the record, and, without undertaking to review it here, except so far as the purposes of this case may require, we are of the opinion that there was evidence legally sufficient to take the case to the jury upon the questions of fact. The defendants' sixth seventh, eighth, and ninth prayers, and the defendants' special...
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