Karras v. Great Northern Railway Company
| Decision Date | 16 April 1926 |
| Docket Number | 25,258,25,259 |
| Citation | 208 N.W. 655,167 Minn. 140 |
| Parties | GEORGE KARRAS v. GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Carlton county to recover for personal injuries. The case was tried before Magney, J., and a jury which returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff. Defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict was granted and judgment was entered for defendant. Later the plaintiff moved for a new trial. His motion was denied. He appeals from the judgment and from the order denying his motion for a new trial. Judgment and order affirmed.
Judgment notwithstanding verdict sustained.
Upon the facts stated in the opinion it is held: That because of the construction and operation of the machinery involved and the nature of plaintiff's injury the accident could not have occurred in the way claimed by plaintiff, therefore the trial court properly granted judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
Peter E. Kamuchey and George G. Chapin, for appellant.
F G. Dorety, A. L. Janes and Baldwin, Baldwin, Holmes & Mayall, for respondent.
Plaintiff appealed from a judgment entered notwithstanding a verdict of $4,000. He also appeals from an order denying his motion for a new trial.
Plaintiff was an employe of defendant. He assisted in unloading rails from flat cars. The work was done with a machine which resembled a steam shovel in appearance and operation. It consisted of an engine inclosed in a cab on a flat car and having a steel framework boom about 29 feet long in the end of which was a pulley for the operation of a shovel or dipper. In the instant work a shovel or dipper was not used. An 11-foot wooden extension was added to the steel boom and in the extreme end was a pulley over which was operated a 5/8 inch metal hoisting cable on the end of which were tongs to attach to and lift rails. The other end of the cable was attached to a drum in the cab. This cable passed on and over the top of the pulley in the end of the steel boom which was designed for the purpose above mentioned. In the instant work its presence was unnecessary. It served only as a carrying pulley. The steel boom with its wooden extension was raised and lowered by means of cables attached to a drum in the cab, running over pulleys at the top of the cab and to, over and around pulleys located about four feet from the distant end of the steel boom. In raising the boom the cable traveled from the engine to the lower side of the pulleys passing around them and over the tops and back to the pulleys at the top of the cab and back to the drum. In lowering the boom it traveled in the opposite direction. When the machine was in use the boom was locked at an angle of about 45 degrees. While it was being so raised plaintiff, while on the right of the machinery facing the pulley end of the extended boom, was injured. When the injury occurred the pulley in the end of the steel boom was apparently from two to three feet from the floor of the car and the other pulleys thereon were about 18 inches higher.
Plaintiff's claim is that the engineer directed him to put the hoisting cable on the pulleys; that he put it on the end pulley when just off the floor and then put it on what we have termed the carrying pulley in the end of the steel boom; that in so doing the engineer started the machine causing the hoisting cable to run over the top of the pulley catching his right hand between the hoisting cable and this pulley; that he used his left hand to aid in releasing his right hand and it too was caught in the same place. He says his screams caused the operator to stop the machine to release him. His version puts the damaging pulley a little to his left immediately before the injury.
The engineer says that plaintiff was injured on the right hand pulley on the steel boom over which a cable was operated as above stated. He claims plaintiff with his right hand took hold of that part of the boom cable going toward the bottom of the pulley and his hand was caught in the pulley necessitating a reversal in the operation of the cable to release him and in the reverse movement plaintiff was further injured on the left hand by having it caught in the tip of the same pulley as the upper part of the cable was going toward the pulley. His version puts the damaging...
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