Moorefield v. Bowman-Hicks Lumber Co

• Decision Date: 16 April 1917
• Docket Number: 21606
• Citation: 141 La. 758,75 So. 672
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: MOOREFIELD v. BOWMAN-HICKS LUMBER CO

75 So. 672

141 La. 758

MOOREFIELD v. BOWMAN-HICKS LUMBER CO

No. 21606

Supreme Court of Louisiana

April 16, 1917

Rehearing Denied June 11, 1917

SYLLABUS

(Syllabus by the Court.)

The master is liable in damages for personal injuries inflicted upon his servant by the incompetency or negligence of another servant in the performance of the work at which the latter was employed, if the master knew of the incompetency of the negligent servant before and during his employment, and the injured employe was neither the superior nor the fellow servant of the negligent one.

Stubbs Theus & Grisham, of Monroe, for appellant.

Gayle & Porter, of Lake Charles, and John Lovejoy, Presley K. Ewing, and L. E. Blankenbecker, all of Houston, Tex., for appellee.

OPINION

O'NIELL, J.

The plaintiff sued for $ 37,500 damages for personal injuries suffered while in the employ of the defendant company.Judgment was rendered in his favor for $ 14,000, from which the defendant prosecutes this appeal.The plaintiff has answered the appeal, praying that the judgment be increased to $ 20,000.

The accident happened at a log skidder owned and operated by the defendant company.The plaintiff was employed as a machinist or general utility man, whose duties were to keep the machinery in repair, and perhaps to take the place of any operator who might have to be relieved of his work.He also delivered to the members of the crew orders issued by the foreman of the skidder.While he was delivering to the fireman an order issued by the foreman, an employe named William Brown, known as the decker, whose duty it was to place the logs in a pile or deck beside the railroad track on which the skidder was operated, caused one of the logs to be thrown upon the plaintiff and the fireman, injuring the plaintiff seriously.

The allegations of fault and negligence are that the work of the decker required that he be a man of experience, skill, and prudence; that the performance of the duties required of a decker, when attempted by an unskilled, inexperienced, or imprudent man, subjected to great danger the lives of the other employes at the skidder; that the defendant's foreman in charge of the skidder operations knew, when he employed William Brown as a decker, that the man was unskilled, inexperienced, and incompetent; that Brown had only been working as a decker about a week when his incompetency and recklessness caused the accident; that during that week several employes about the skidder complained to the foreman that Brown was incompetent and reckless and that his incompetency and recklessness in the manner of piling or decking the logs was dangerous to the other employes; that the foreman saw and knew that Brown was an incompetent, reckless, and dangerous operator, and frequently complained to him of his reckless and dangerous manner of doing the work, but kept him at the employment at the risk of the lives of the other employes.The plaintiff alleged in his petition that he did not know and had had no opportunity of knowing that Brown had had no previous experience as a decker or was unskilled or incompetent.

The answer of the defendant company is that it did not require any training or experience or special skill to do the work of a log decker, at which Brown was employed; that the plaintiff's was at the time of the accident employed as assistant to the foreman of the skidder, and was therefore charged with knowledge of Brown's incompetency, if he was incompetent, to do the work safely; that at the time of the accident the plaintiff had negligently and without notice to his fellow servants left his post of duty and assumed a place of danger; that, if he had remained at his post of duty where his fellow employes believed and had a right to assume he would be, he would not have been injured; that the injuries he suffered were occasioned by his own negligence and by that of his fellow servants engaged in the same employment, and were not due to any fault or negligence on the part of any one for whose fault or negligence the defendant company was responsible.The defendant admitted that the plaintiff was injured while he was employed by the defendant company, but denied the extent of the injury alleged.In the assignment of errors filed in this courtthe appellant complains: First, that the plaintiff's demand should have been rejected entirely because of the defenses set forth in the answer; and, second, that, if the judgment should not be reversed, it should be amended by reducing the amount...