Norwood v. St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 09 June 1927
• Docket Number: No. 4128.,4128.
• Citation: 296 S.W. 222
• Parties: NORWOOD v. ST. LOUIS-SAN FRANCISCO RY. CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

296 S.W. 222

NORWOOD v. ST. LOUIS-SAN FRANCISCO RY. CO.

No. 4128.

Springfield Court of Appeals. Missouri.

June 9, 1927.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Douglass County; Fred Stewart, Judge.

Action by Elmer Norwood against the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

E. T. Miller, of St. Louis, and Henry S. Conrad, L. E. Durham, and Hale Houts, all of Kansas City, for appellant.

Seth V. Conrad, of Marshfield, and Hamlin, Hamlin & Hamlin, of Springfield, for respondent.

COX, P. J.

Action for damages for personal injuries. Plaintiff recovered, and defendant appealed.

This is the second appeal in this case. The first is reported in 277 S. W. 936, to which reference is made for a full statement of facts. At that time the judgment was reversed on the ground that the court erred in not sustaining a demurrer to plaintiff's testimony and the cause remanded for another trial. The petition was then amended which set up the facts that plaintiff was in the employ of the defendant as a car repairer, at Newburg, Mo. That cars were inspected at Newburg and if found to need repairs they were placed upon a track and tagged; that is, a card designating the repairs needed was tagged on the car. That the car on which plaintiff was working at the time of his injury was tagged, showing that it needed a yoke rivet replaced. That in order to replace the yoke rivet it was necessary to remove the drawhead or coupler. This drawhead was the coupler by which one car was coupled or fastened to another car in the train. This drawhead was about 4 or 5 feet long, 18 inches wide where the coupling is made and about 10 inches wide at the other end, and weighed 250 to 300 pounds. This drawhead was held in position by casings or iron supports on either side which bolted and riveted to a steel sill of the car, to which was attached by means of rivets an iron or cast bar known as a "lug." To this lug were attached what is called "gibs," and these gibs supported plates known as "follower plates" that extended from the lug bar on one side to a like bar on the other side. That to remove the drawhead or coupler, the usual and approved method adopted by defendant was to loosen all its supports and then let the drawhead fall of its own weight. If it would not fall, the practice was to shove it back and forth until it would be thoroughly loosened, when it would fall. That on January 21, 1924, plaintiff and a colaborer, E. M. Barnum, were engaged in removing a drawhead or coupler from a car, and when its fastenings were loosened it failed to fall. That it was manipulated in the usual way, "but it refused and failed to fall by reason of the lug on each side of the gib near the center being broken and the rivets at the top of the lug being out and those at the bottom being loose and bent, and by reason thereof the lug caught, pinched, and held the drawbar and the follower plate in such a position that it held and prevented the drawbar from falling, whereupon plaintiff stepped to the north side of the track, and...