Lehigh Valley R. Co. v. Delachesa

• Decision Date: 02 April 1906
• Docket Number: 140.
• Citation: 145 F. 617
• Parties: LEHIGH VALLEY R. CO. v. DELACHESA.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

145 F. 617

LEHIGH VALLEY R. CO. v. DELACHESA.

No. 140.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

April 2, 1906

Allan McCulloh, for plaintiff in error.

E. J McCrossin, for defendant in error.

Before WALLACE, LACOMBE, and COXE, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

The only assignment of error which it will be necessary to consider is whether the trial judge erred in refusing to direct a verdict for the defendant upon the ground that it was not responsible for the acts of the men by whose fault the plaintiff was injured. The plaintiff, an employe of a firm of stevedores, was injured while unloading iron from a car standing on a sidetrack of the Lehigh Valley Terminal Railroad Company, at the dock of that company at Jersey City. It was undisputed that if the accident was caused by negligence, other than that of the plaintiff or his co-employes wholly or in part, the negligence was that of the men in charge of the dock or the men in charge of the train which backed down upon the car on which the plaintiff was at work. It was established that the track and dock had been leased by the terminal company to the Easton & Amboy Railroad Company, and that the men in charge of the dock and the men in charge of the train were the employes of the Easton & Amboy Railroad Company. Much evidence was introduced upon the trial for the purpose of showing that the defendant and the Easton & Amboy Railroad Company were a partnership for the business of conducting their joint traffic, and to establish the relations between these two corporations which were considered by this court in Lehigh Valley Railroad Co. v. Dupont, 128 F. 840, 64 C.C.A. 478. But the trial judge did not place the liability of the defendant upon the ground that it was answerable for the negligence of its copartner, and only allow this evidence to be considered upon the question of fact whether the defendant or the Easton &amp Amboy Railroad Company was in actual control and operation of the freight train and the dock in delivering the iron. He instructed the jury that unless they found that the defendant itself was engaged in delivering the iron (i.e., delivering it on board its cars at the dock), it did not owe any duty to the plaintiff and was not liable. If the evidence authorized the jury to find this to be the fact, and the employes of the Easton & Amboy Company were temporarily the servants of the defendant, for that purpose and solely under its control, it is hardly disputable that the defendant was responsible for the negligence of these employes. We think there was sufficient evidence upon this issue to present a question of fact to the jury. The freight cars and the engine belonged to the defendant; the iron had not been reshipped, but was being delivered from the cars in which it was originally received by the defendant upon the line of its own road. Its relation with the Easton & Amboy Railroad were such that the facts that its cars were being run upon the road of that company and the employes of that company were conducting the operation of...