Partins Adm'R. v. Black Mountain Corp.
| Decision Date | 07 March 1933 |
| Parties | Partin's Administrator v. Black Mountain Corporation. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
2. Mines and Minerals. — Additional evidence regarding worn and broken coupling links did not so clearly establish cause of break in coupling, resulting in decedent being crushed by runaway mine cars, so as to preclude decedent's administrator from relying on res ipsa loquitur doctrine.
3. Mines and Minerals. — In action for death of invitee crushed by runaway mine cars, when worn coupling link broke, evidence of defendant's negligence held for jury.
Appeal from Harlan Circuit Court.
G.G. RAWLINGS for appellant.
B.M. LEE for appellee.
Reversing.
This is the third appeal of this case. The opinions on the two former appeals may be found in 237 Ky. 556, 36 S.W. (2d) 1, and 243 Ky. 791, 49 S.W. (2d) 1014. It is a suit brought by the administrator of S.T. Partin, deceased, for damages on account of the death of Partin, occasioned by his being crushed in the mine of the appellee by a cut of runaway mine cars. On the trial of this case, from which the second appeal was taken, the facts were developed by the evidence adduced on both sides. On that trial, the administrator of Partin, after introducing testimony tending to show that Partin at the time of the fatal accident was an invitee in appellee's mine, and had been killed by a cut of runaway mine cars which had broken loose from a train of loaded mine cars which were being taken out of the mine, rested his case, relying on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. His right to do so being challenged by his opponent's motion for a peremptory instruction, we held on the appeal from the judgment he secured on that trial that the trial court did not err in overruling the motion for a peremptory instruction made at the close of the plaintiff's introduction of testimony. The defendant on that trial, however, did not rest on its challenge to the sufficiency of the plaintiff's evidence to carry his case to the jury, but introduced its evidence, which, in the opinion of this court, on the appeal from the judgment which went against the defendant, overcame the presumption in favor of the plaintiff raised under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. We held that, this presumption having been thus overcome, the trial court should have peremptorily instructed the jury to find for the defendant at the close of the whole case. Because the lower court failed to do so, the judgment was reversed; other errors committed by the trial court on that trial also being pointed out. On the return of the case to the trial court, it was again tried. Again did the administrator of Partin introduce evidence tending to show that Partin at the time of his death was an invitee in the mine of the appellee, and that he had been killed by a cut of runaway mine cars. But he further produced evidence to the effect that, immediately after Partin had been crushed by the runaway mine cars, the witness examined the coupling link on the mine car nearest the entry of the mine whence these runaway cars had come, and found that this link was an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half in thickness, had been worn down about a quarter of an inch, and was broken in two. The administrator then rested his case. Thereupon, on motion of the appellee, the court peremptorily instructed the jury to find for the appellee, which it did. This appeal results.
It will be noted that the only difference between the evidence for the Partin estate on this last trial and that of the estate on the trial from which the second appeal resulted was the evidence as to the condition of the coupling link immediately after the accident. But for this additional evidence, it is plain, that under the law of the case as laid down in the opinion on the second appeal, the Partin estate would at least, in the absence of the evidence of the appellee, have been entitled to go to the jury. So the question we have for determination is whether or not the additional evidence as to the condition of the coupling link immediately after the accident justified the trial court in peremptorily instructing the jury to find for the appellee. The latter insists that the...
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