Lassiter v. Seaboard Air Line Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 29 March 1916
• Docket Number: 256.
• Citation: 88 S.E. 335,171 N.C. 283
• Parties: LASSITER v. SEABOARD AIR LINE RY. CO.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

88 S.E. 335

171 N.C. 283

LASSITER v. SEABOARD AIR LINE RY. CO.

No. 256.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

March 29, 1916

Appeal from Superior Court, Wake County; Peebles, Judge.

Action by Charles Lassiter against the Seaboard Air Line Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. New trial ordered.

The first issue submitted by the charge was: "Was the plaintiff injured by the negligence of the defendant as alleged in the complaint?"

This action was brought to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by negligence of the defendant. The particular nature of the cause of action will appear from a recital of material parts of the testimony.

Charles Lassiter, the plaintiff, in his own behalf testified:

"I have lived in Raleigh about 15 years and worked most of that time in the city cemetery. I worked for the defendant for six nights in March of last year. I got hurt on the 23d of March, in the night. I hadn't worked any for the railroad before. They put me to shoveling coal at the coal pit. Leo Black was working with me. The man that worked on the hister sent me and Leo Black down to the engine to cut down the coal off the engine, and the engine was headed north, and we went down and cut the coal off the engine and when we came out I got struck on the steps on the left side. We shoveled the coal from the back side of the tender to the front side of the tender. As near as I could guess it was between midnight and day. I did not have any torch at all and Leo had one, but his went out. When we shoveled the coal from the back end of the tender to the front end we shoveled it all on the tender, then we came back to the coal pit. That night, after shoveling the coal down, I started out of the tender. I started through the cab and down the steps on the left side. I was on the step. I had a jar from the engine when I was coming down the step. Well it was a jar from another engine. It ran into us. It gave the engine a jar from back side of the tender; on back side at tender. The engine was headed north, and the tender was on the back side. I got hit on the left side by the jar from the steps when I was coming out and it ran in. It hurt me from my knee on up to my side. My knee struck against the steps. I didn't do nothing but hollered and got down the best I could; held on to the steps until I got so I could get down. When I started to go down and when this happened my engine had been standing still. I was not able to get out of bed the next day. I was disabled to work any at all for about four months. (Describes his injuries.) Nobody was in the engine with me and Leo Black. I did not know the other engine was going to strike the tender. It was dark and we could not see. No bell was rung and no alarm given at all. I am about 43 years old. I had never worked for the railroad before that time. This is down below the sand house on the Seaboard track. The man that runs the hister was the man we worked under. Of course, Mr. Pusey was the main boss man, but he put us under that man. He was the overseer over us, and we worked under his orders."

Leo Black, witness for plaintiff, testified:

"I was working for the Seaboard at the time Charlie Lassiter got hurt. I and Charlie went down on the engine to work. It was a freight engine. We were ordered by the boss, but his name I do not know, and I and Charlie went down there, and I had a torch. We got up on the engine and cut the coal from the back to the front, and after we cut it, I went to pick up the torch and it went out, and we came through the cab, coming out on the left side--on the west--and the torch was out, and I came down first, and Charlie came down behind me, and after I got on the ground, some one coupled up to the tender behind, and I could not see any light of the engine, and after he coupled up, Charlie hollered, and I walked on a step or two, and Charlie came up and said he got hurt, and I said, 'Where?' and he said, 'On his knee,' and he went over to where James Gunter and Dave Haywood were. They were working on the ash pan, and he came up to the fire where we all sit, and he kept complaining, and on in the night he said his knee was swollen, and I never saw him any more until about morning; that's about time for us all to knock off, and he was still complaining with his knee, and the next night the boys came back to work, and they said he wasn't able to come back to work. I did not see him any more after he got hurt; he was hurt at the sand track. That was the usual place used to come down--where he got hurt. I didn't hear any signal before the engine struck the tender. Q. You say there was a blow when the engine struck the tender? A. Well, they coupled up behind, and it made a jar. It was only a jar; all I know, from coupling; just a jar. Of course it was a hard blow. I don't know whether the engine that came up behind the tender was coupling or not. That's what I supposed. I didn't go around there to look to see whether they were coupled. I don't know who was on the engine. The hostler had been on the engine, I and he was, but he got off. The other engine was brought out there to be worked, I suppose, to go out on the road. They were both headed north. I never saw any one at the engine but Charlie Lassiter. The engine that we were on was standing still, and the other came up behind it, and came up against it."

There was some evidence as to the nature and extent of plaintiff's injury, and as to damages, but it is not necessary to be stated.

Defendant requested the court to charge the jury as follows:

"If the jury should find that the jar of the engine on which the plaintiff was employed was caused by coupling another engine to this engine and that this coupling was made in the usual and proper manner, you will answer the first issue 'No.' "

This prayer...