King v. Dudley
| Decision Date | 17 December 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 47334,47334 |
| Citation | 286 So.2d 814 |
| Parties | Margretta Vaughn Lee KING et al. v. J. J. 'Jud' DUDLEY and L. C. Glaspie. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Lawrence Chandler, Calhoun City, Cliff R. Easley, Jr., Bruce, for appellants.
Threadgill & Smith, Columbus, Henry L. Lackey, Calhoun City, for appellees.
This is a suit by the next of kind of Franklin Dennis Lee, deceased, (plaintiffs) against J. J. Dudley and L. C. Glaspie (defendants) to recover for the alleged wrongful death of Franklin Dennis Lee. At the close of the plaintiffs' case, the court sustained defendants' motion for a directed verdict. Judgment was entered for the defendants, and plaintiffs appealed.
Dudley operated a pulpwood yard in the town of Bruce, where he purchased pulpwood from the general public. Dudley employed Glaspie who operated a hoisting machine used in unloading pulpwood from the seller's truck and in loading the pulpwood on railroad cars. Lee sold one or two truckloads of pulpwood to Dudley each week, and on the occasion when he met his death, brought to Dudley's yard his truck loaded with two units of pulpwood. A unit of pulpwood weighs approximately 7,000 pounds. After the first unit had been unloaded from the truck, Dudley was on the railroad car straightening up the wood on the car while Glaspie hooked the hoisting cable around one end of the second unit of pulpwood and Lee hooked the cable around the other end. The unit of pulpwood was then hoisted from the truck, and the hoisting machine was moved a short distance from the truck. At this time Dudley called to Glaspie to come to the freight car and help him move a large stick of pulpwood that had gotten caught. Glaspie then took the hoisting machine out of gear, put the parking brakes on, got off the machine and left the wood suspended about twelve feet in the air while he went to the railroad car to help Dudley. The railroad car was approximately twenty feet from the place where the pulpwood was left suspended in the air. And while thus suspended, Lee walked under the suspended wood, which fell upon and killed him.
The testimony on behalf of Dudley and Glaspie, who were called as adverse witnesses, was that the cause of the wood falling was the fact that the cable that Lee had hooked had come loose and that if the cable was not properly hooked, it would come loose. The jury had before it pictures of the cables and evidence to the effect that once the cable is hooked and the wood is lifted, there is no way for the hook to become disengaged. In our opinion, this made a jury issue as to whether the wood fell because the cable that Lee had hooked came loose or whether it fell for some other reason.
Dudley testified that a load of wood had fallen once before due to a broken cable, but there is no contention that the cable in this instance broke. Dudley also testified that during wet weather the clutch on the machine would slip, resulting in the wood falling. But on the day that Lee was killed, the weather was clear. Dudley testified that it only took about a minute for Glaspie to assist him in straightening out the stick of pulpwood and that as a general practice he never left wood suspended for over three or four minutes at a time. Dudley also testiifed that he had warned Lee a few minutes before he was killed that it was dangerous to walk under the wood while it was suspended in the air and that the machine could turn over. This was the second load of wood that Lee had brought to the Dudley yard on the day in question, and Dudley testified that each time he had warned Lee not to walk under the wood when it was being hoisted. Glaspie testified that he tested the machine after Lee had been killed and that the machine was functioning properly.
Harold Inman, who purchased from Dudley about a year and a half later the woodyard where the incident took place, testified that h...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Tharp v. Bunge Corp., 90-CA-01160
...injuries, where the condition is not dangerous, or where the condition is, or should be, known or obvious to the invitee. King v. Dudley, 286 So.2d 814, 816 (Miss.1973); General Tire & Rubber Co. v. Darnell, 221 So.2d 104, 107 Kroger, Inc. v. Ware, 512 So.2d 1281, 1282 (Miss.1987). Our law ......
-
Bell v. City of Bay St. Louis
...to discover them. Against such conditions it may normally be expected that the visitor will protect himself. Again in King v. Dudley, 286 So.2d 814 (Miss.1973), p. 816, we The owner of a business is not the insurer of invitees using his premises for business reasons, and there is no liabili......
-
Goodwin v. Derryberry Co.
...See McIntosh v. Deas, 501 So.2d 367, 370 (Miss.1987); Lancaster v. City of Clarksdale, 339 So.2d 1359, 1360 (Miss.1976); King v. Dudley, 286 So.2d 814, 816 (Miss.1973); Wilson v. Kirkwood, 221 So.2d 79, 81 (Miss.1969). See also F.W. Woolworth Co. v. Stokes, 191 So.2d 411, 418 (Miss.1986) (W......
-
White v. Hancock Bank, 55045
...to the party opposed to the motion. Weems v. American Security Insurance Company, 450 So.2d 431, 435 (Miss.1984); King v. Dudley, 286 So.2d 814, 816 (Miss.1973); Colson v. Sims, 254 Miss. 99, 180 So.2d 327 (1965). The plaintiff must also be given the benefit of all favorable inferences that......