Njus v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 10 August 1891
• Citation: 47 Minn. 92
• Parties: LOUIS A. NJUS <I>vs.</I> CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL RAILWAY COMPANY.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

47 Minn. 92

LOUIS A. NJUS vs. CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL RAILWAY COMPANY.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

August 10, 1891.

Appeal by defendant from an order of the district court for Freeborn county, Farmer, J., presiding, refusing a new trial after verdict of $1,500 for plaintiff, who lost his left thumb under the circumstances stated in the opinion.

W. E. Todd and H. H. Field, for appellant.

Lovely & Morgan and D. F. Morgan, for respondent.

GILFILLAN, C. J.

Plaintiff, while working for the defendant as a "sectionman," was injured in the state of Iowa, through the negligence, as alleged, of others of the sectionmen with whom he was working. The section crew of which he was one, with three other section crews, were ordered to go upon a train of four flat-cars loaded with railroad iron, and drawn by an engine, and going east from a station called Cresco, and stopping at various points, where the men threw off a sufficient number of bars of the iron to repair the track at each point. At one point, when the train was at rest, and the men were engaged in throwing off iron bars, the plaintiff was injured in consequence, as claimed, of the negligent manner in which the other men working with plaintiff let one of the bars drop. The defendant urges that it was a case of co-employes, and governed by the rules of the common law in respect to the right of a servant to recover from the master for an injury caused by the negligence of a co-servant in the same general employment. The plaintiff urges that it comes within the statute of Iowa, (similar in its main features to the statute of this state on the same subject,) prescribing the liability of railroad companies for injuries caused by the negligence of their employes.

As the injury occurred in the state of Iowa, the question whether a cause of action therefor arose must be determined by the law of that state. What that law was, whenever the question arises upon a trial in this state, is a question of fact. To determine what that law was, the terms of the statute, as set out in the complaint, were admitted, and it was agreed that all the decisions of the supreme court of Iowa should be considered in evidence, without particular citation. The courts of that state have had similar difficulties in construing and applying their statute to those we have had in construing and applying ours. Of course, the decisions of this court upon our statute, do not determine the question; but it must be determined by the decisions in Iowa, whether they are in accord with the decisions in this state or not. The cases coming before the supreme court in that state, in which the statute has been held to apply, have generally been cases where the injury was in some way connected with, or caused by, the movement or operating of trains. But there are other cases in which the court held the statute to apply, although the injury was not caused by the actual moving or operating of trains. Thus in Deppe v. Chicago, R. I. & Pac. Ry. Co., 36 Iowa, 52, it was held that an...