Monroe v. Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 12 January 1911
• Citation: 141 Ky. 549
• Parties: Monroe v. Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Co.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

141 Ky. 549

Monroe v. Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Co.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Decided January 12, 1911.

Appeal from Jefferson Circuit Court (Common Pleas Branch, First Division).

BRADLEY & CHILTON for appellant.

ALFRED SELLIGMAN and JOSEPH SELLIGMAN for appellee.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUDGE LASSING — Reversing.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Jefferson Circuit Court dismissing a petition.

In the petition the plaintiff sought to recover damages for injuries sustained by her seventeen year old son while in the employ of the defendant company. She alleged that her son was employed by said company as an oiler of machinery in its power house, and that while so engaged on the 6th of September, 1910, "through the gross carelessness and negligence of the defendant, its agents and servants superior in authority to him, the said Edward Monroe was thrown and knocked with great force and violence to the floor of the power house, and struck by various missiles by the explosion and bursting of the machinery and parts thereof in said power house, thereby severely and permanently injuring his upper and lower limbs, his hips and thighs, back, sides, chest, stomach, spine, and head and ears and seriously affecting his hearing and injuring him internally and severely shocking his nervous system, and by reason of all of which the plaintiff has been deprived of her son's services of the value of $1,999," for which she prayed, etc. A demurrer was sustained to this petition with leave. The plaintiff declined to plead further, the petition was dismissed, and she appeals.

Does this petition state a good cause of action? In the case of Chiles v. Drake, 59 Ky. 146, where the plaintiff sought to recover damages for the wilful and negligent killing of her husband, this court held that, "in actions for personal injuries, resulting from negligence, it has always been regarded as sufficient for the plaintiff to allege, in general terms, that the injury complained of was occasioned by the carelessness and negligence of the defendant. He has not been required to state the circumstances with which the infliction of the injury was accompanied, in order to show that it had been occasioned by negligence. An allegation of the extent of the injury, and of the manner in which it was inflicted, has been always regarded as sufficient." That case was decided in 1859. The same rule has been announced by this court in many cases decided since that time, and in the recent case of Gaines & Co. v. Johnson, 133 Ky. 507, decided in April, 1909, the principle announced in the case of Chiles v. Drake was restated and approved.

In harmony with these opinions is the text in Bliss on Code Pleading, Sec. 211, in which the author, in discussing the distinction between pleading fraud and negligence, announces the rule that "a general allegation of negligence is allowed; the negligence is the ultimate fact to be proved, and is not a legal conclusion." He then cites cases from the Supreme Courts of Iowa and Missouri and the Court of Appeals of New York, in each of which the charge of negligence was laid in general terms. The cases to which he refers are all against common carriers and the negligence proven was a breach of duty in failing to observe certain statutory requirements, that is, the cause of action in each was rested upon negligence growing out of the doing of the act resulting in the injury.

To the same effect is Newman, in his Pleading and Practice, Sec. 208-a, in which he broadly states the rule thus:

"In actions for personal injury resulting from negligence, it was and still is sufficient for the plaintiff to allege, in general terms, that the injury complained of was occasioned by the carelessness and negligence of the defendant, without stating the circumstances with which the infliction of the injury was accompanied, in order to show that it was ocasioned by negligence."

He cites in support of this text several cases of this court, beginning with that of Chiles v. Drake, 59 Ky. 146, and, in fact, the text itself is almost a copy...