Lyons v. Joseph T. Ryerson & Son

• Decision Date: 22 December 1909
• Citation: 242 Ill. 409,90 N.E. 288
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: LYONS v. JOSEPH T. RYERSON & SON.

242 Ill. 409

90 N.E. 288

LYONS

v.JOSEPH T. RYERSON & SON.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 22, 1909.

Appeal from Appellate Court, First District, on Appeal from Superior Court, Cook County; George A. Dupuy, Judge.

Action by James Lyons against Joseph T. Ryerson & Son. A judgment for plaintiff was affirmed by the Appellate Court, and defendant appeals. Reversed.H. B. Hale and Morse Ives, for appellant.

Rice & O'Neil, for appellee.

CARTER, J.

This is an action on the case brought in the circuit court of Cook county by appellee, against appellant, for personal injuries. The declaration consisted of one count, and alleged: That on July 2, 1905, appellee was in the employ of appellant as a common laborer, and while in the exercise of due care for his own safety was engaged in repairing a certain railroad track in appellant's machine shop, near a car upon which the appellant was loading a large amount of iron, about 5,000 pounds, by means of a traveling crane; that appellant to carelessly and negligently loaded said iron on said car and so negligently manipulated said traveling crane that a chain attached to said crane became entangled with said iron and car and lifted up and tilted the said car and the iron thereon over and upon appellee, injuring his foot and ankle, etc. Trial before a jury resulted in a verdict of $2,500, on which judgment was entered. On appeal to the Appellate Court that judgment was affirmed, and this appeal follows.

The appellant corporation owned a machine shop or structural iron factory located at Rockwell and Sixteenth streets, in Chicago. The building was divided into two sections by a partition running north and south, which separated the building into an east and west room, between which was a door from 8 to 12 feet wide. There were skids or tracks in both rooms, one track running through the door above mentioned, on which ran a truck for carrying iron. Iron was transferred from different parts of the building by means of an electric traveling crane running overhead and operated by a craneman in an overhead cage. A chain lowered from the crane was attached to the iron which it was wished to move, and when the iron was deposited where desired the chain was unhooked, and on a signal given to the craneman the slack of the chain was taken up. Appellee's regular and ordinary duty in the machine shop was to chip from the beams manufactured in the factory the irregularities or burrs left in cutting them and then to pile the beams together on the skids Appellee testified: That on the day of the accident he was directed by appellant to do some repair work on the track running between these two rooms, replacing some of the rails in that part of the track just inside the west room, near the door; that just previous to the accident a quantity of angle iron had been transferred from a point in the west room some distance from where appellee was working, to a truck standing about 20 feet or less west of where appellee then was and on the same track that he was repairing; that a little time after the iron had been so deposited on the truck he noticed that the truck was slightly moving, there being a slight incline in the track; that to keep it from running to where he was repairingthe track he blocked the wheels and then went back to his work; that shortly thereafter the load of iron on the truck tipped over and fell upon him, causing a severe injury to his foot and also injuring a finger; that he had nothing to do with the loading of the iron onto the truck or taking the chains from the load after it was lowered to the truck; and that his work had no connection with that of the man who operated the crane or the men who were associated with the craneman in putting the iron onto the truck and loosening the chain therefrom. The foreman who was in charge of the work on that day testified for appellant that appellee and the other men who were working with the crane were instructed by him to repair the tracks and get out the orders for angle iron, and that he did not give any particular orders to any one of the men as to which should get out the orders and which should repair the tracks. Three witnesses testified for appellant with reference to what appellee did just before the accident. Two of them testified that just before the accident appellee handled the chain that was used in hoisting the iron onto the trucks; one of them saying that Lyons was one of the men who helped loosen the chain. The third of these witnesses saw the appellee standing near the track shortly before the chain was unloosed. Witness Evert, who testified for appellee, stated that the latter had nothing to do with the chain. He admitted, however, that he had said, only a few days before the trial, that appellee was one of the persons who loosened the chain after the iron was put upon the truck, and that he had also signed a statement to that effect, but that he now saw he was mistaken. He gave no reason as to why he thought he was mistaken in his original statement. This same witness testified that the craneman, Kelly, was an inexperienced man in that work. There was other testimony in the record tending to show that Kelly was inexperienced as a craneman, while the foreman stated that Kelly had frequently operated the crane. The evidence tends to shows, and it seems to be conceded by both the parties, that the iron tipped over because it was caught and pulled by the chain connected with the crane as the craneman was taking in the slack of the chain. Kelly, the craneman, did not testify, as he could not be found by either party at the time of the trial.

It is insisted by appellant that the evidence shows that appellee was injured because he went near the truck for the purpose of blocking the wheel, that according to the testimony this was not a part of his duty, and that appellant's obligation to furnish a safe place to work did not extend to places where appellee's duties did not require him to go. The evidence is in conflict as to whether appellee's injury was caused by his being near the truck at the time it tipped over and the iron fell, for the purpose of putting a block under the wheel. The contention of appellee is that he was working at his regular duties, repairing the track, when the iron fell, and that going near the truck to block the wheel had nothing to do with his being injured. On this state of the evidence, the question whether his being near the truck for the purpose of putting in the block contributed to his injury was for the jury, under proper instructions. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. Camper, 199 Ill. 569, 65 N. E. 448. No question of law has been raised on this point, either with reference to the instructions or the admission of evidence. Hence we are not required to consider the question of law whether or not the appellee could recover if his injuries occurred because he was in a place where his duties did not require him to go.

It is further contended that the appellee was a fellow servant of the craneman and those who were working with Kelly in loading the angle iron onto the truck. It has long been the settled law of this state that the servants of a common master, to be coemployés so as to exempt the mastr from liability on account of injuries sustained by one resulting from the negligence of the other, must be directly co-operating with each other in a particular business, as distinct from indirect co-operation of the general business of the master, or that their usual...