Pate v. Gus Blair-Big Muddy Coal Co.

• Decision Date: 21 December 1911
• Citation: 96 N.E. 849,252 Ill. 198
• Parties: PATE v. GUS BLAIR-BIG MUDDY COAL CO.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

252 Ill. 198

96 N.E. 849

PATE

v.GUS BLAIR-BIG MUDDY COAL CO.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 21, 1911.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; A. W. Lewis, Judge.

Action by Carrie Pate against the Gus Blair-Big Muddy Coal Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.Dennison & Spiller, James H. Martin, and Otis Glenn (Mastin & Sherlock, of counsel), for appellant.

W. A. Schwartz and John M. Herbert, for appellee.

DUNN, J.

The appellee recovered a judgment in the circuit court of Jackson county against the appellant, the Gus Blair-Big Muddy Coal Company, on account of the death of her husband, Arlie Pate, and an appeal has been prosecuted directly to this court upon the ground that the constitutionality of a statute is involved.

[1] A motion made by the appellee to dismiss the appeal was taken with the case. The action was founded upon the alleged negligence of the defendant in respect to the engine, machinery, and appliances known as the ‘rope-haulage system,’ whereby cars loaded with coal were hauled through certain entries and roadways to the bottom of the mine, and were returned empty, to be again filled. The declaration was based upon the mining act (Hurd's Rev. St. 1909, c. 93), and in each of its three counts attempted to charge a willful violation of sections 16 and 18. The first count charged a willful failure and neglect to cause the dangerous places and conditions to be marked where the balance wheels of the engine had been broken and the engine was run without balance wheels; where certain friction blocks used to apply to the drums had become worn and permitted the drums to slip; where the wire rope would not wind properly on the drums, but would become ‘balled up,’ and would thereby be caused to vibrate unduly; where the clevis and pin whereby the rope was attached to the cars had become worn, so that the clevis would readily become detached. The second count charged that the defendant willfully permitted the deceased to enter the mine and become a trip rider therein, not under the direction of the mine manager, while the dangerous conditions above mentioned, except that relating to the clevis and pin, had not been made safe. The third count charged a willful failure to have the mine examiner visit and inspect the mine, and observe the dangerous conditions above mentioned, and mark them as unsafe places. It is the contention of the appellant that sections 16 and 18 do not apply to the dangerous conditions mentioned, and that, so applied, they would be unconstitutional, because such dangers do not come within the unusual or known extraordinary hazards of the mining business which justify the enactment of laws affecting the persons engaged in that business, but are only such as are common to other occupations and as to which the law must apply equally to all persons affected. The circuit court held that those sections did apply to defects and dangers of the character mentioned, and therefore rendered a judgment against the appellant, which violated its constitutional rights if the sections could not be constitutionally construed to apply to its case. The constitutional question is thus involved and the motion to dismiss the appeal must be denied.

The only assignment of error argued by the appellant is that the court erred in refusing to exclude the evidence, and direct the jury to find it not guilty. The appellant made no motion for a new trial, and it is insisted by the appellee that the question argued cannot be considered on appeal.

[2] The practice in this respect was considered in Yarber v. Chicago & Alton Railway Co., 235 Ill. 589, 603, 85 N. E. 928, 933, where we said: ‘Under the practice in this state, decisions of the court made in the progress of a trial upon instructions, objections to evidence, or other matters of law arising in the cause, which have been incorporated in a bill of exceptions, may be assigned for error and reviewed by an appellate court without any motion for a new trial.’

[3] The weight of the evidence cannot be questioned, but a motion to direct a verdict raises only the legal question whether there is any evidence legally tending to sustain the verdict.

The facts which the evidence tends to show are that the appellant was operating a coal mine with a shaft about 150 feet deep, and an entry extending from the bottom of the shaft several hundred feet to a double switch, where the pit cars loaded with coal were collected, to be transported to the bottom of the shaft. In this entry was a ropehaulage system, consisting of a steel wire cable about 2,600 feet long and a steel tail rope about 5,000 feet long. The system was operated by a double-cylinder steam engine located about 40 feet from the bottom of the shaft, containing two drums, upon one of which the main cable was wound and upon the other the tail rope. The main cable extended from the drum, over certain sheave wheels and rollers, to the double switch, where it was connected to the front end of the trip of loaded cars to be hauled to the bottom of the shaft. Attached to the end of it was a steel chain about eight feet long, in the end of which was a ring. A single link extended about ten inches from the end of the car. The ring in the end of the chain was attached to the link by a large clevis and pin. This pin was constructed with a circular handhold at the upper end and a swell at the lower end, so that a person handling the clevis could take hold of the pin at the handhold and pull it out of the lower eye of the clevis, but could not pull it out of the upper eye because of the swell at its lower end. The tail rope extended from the other drum of the engine, along the side of the entry, over certain sheave wheels and hangers, to the end of the system, where it went over a large sheave wheel, called the ‘bull wheel,’ and back along the entry to the double switch, where it was attached to the rear end of the trip of cars. The cars were loaded in the various working places and hauled by the drivers to the double switch, where they were stored until they could be conveyed to the bottom of the shaft. A trip consisted of from 10 to 15 loaded cars, which were under the control of a trip rider, whose duty it was to see that the cars were properly coupled together, to connect the tail rope to the rear and the main hauling rope to the front end of the trip,...