Price v. Hiram Lloyd Bldg. & Const. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 June 1915
• Docket Number: No. 14055.,14055.
• Citation: 177 S.W. 700,191 Mo. App. 395
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals
• Parties: PRICE v. HIRAM LLOYD BLDG. & CONST. CO.

177 S.W. 700

191 Mo. App. 395

PRICE v. HIRAM LLOYD BLDG. & CONST. CO.

No. 14055.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

June 8, 1915.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court, William T. Jones, Judge.

Action by Avery Price against the Hiram Lloyd Building & Construction Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

H. A. & C. R. Hamilton and T. E. Francis, all of St. Louis, for appellant. John A. Blevins and J. W. Jamison, both of St. Louis, for respondent.

ALLEN, J.

This is an action for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff while in the employ of defendant corporation, and alleged to have been caused by its negligence. There was a verdict and judgment below for plaintiff, and the case is here upon defendant's appeal.

Defendant is a construction company, and on November 17, 1911, was engaged in erecting a public school building in the city of St. Louis, upon which plaintiff was employed as a carpenter. On the date last mentioned plaintiff was injured while working upon the second floor of the building then in process of construction. It appears that plaintiff and a fellow workman, named Bliven, were engaged in constructing a wooden frame across the top of a window opening in one of the walls of the building, into which frame, when completed, was to be put cement, with metal strips or rods extending through the same, in order to form a lintel of reinforced concrete above this window. The brick wall had been erected to the top of the window opening, and the lintel was to rest upon the wall with its ends imbedded therein. The floor of the second story had been laid, and was of concrete; and plaintiff aid his fellow workman were upon this floor engaged in putting in place the lintel frame above mentioned. It appears that the latter was put up in three sections, as they are termed, consisting of the bottom, the outer section, and the inner section. The first two of these had been put in place, and plaintiff and Bliven were putting up the inner section when plaintiff was injured.

Plaintiff's evidence goes to show that this inner section of the lintel frame consisted of four planks fastened together, the whole being from 37 to 40 inches in width and about 12 feet long, the lumber used being 2 inches in thickness. It had been previously used for similar purposes, and plaintiff testified that it had been lying upon the ground in a pool of water formed by rainfall, was water-soaked, and weighed at the time from 200 to 250 pounds. Defendant's testimony is that it was about 29 inches in width, and did not weigh more than 150 pounds. In putting the section in place plaintiff and Bliven used a scaffold about 10 feet in height, formed by placing a plank across the top of two stepladders. It is said that this plank was 10 inches wide, 2 inches in thickness, and about 12 feet long, and that the stepladders were made of light material. It appears that plaintiff and Bliven stood upon this plank while four other men, one of them being defendant's superintendent, passed up to them this section; that they then put in place along the window opening, resting it upon certain crossarms that had been prepared to receive it. In this position it formed one of the vertical sides of the troughlike frame for making the lintel. It was not nailed in place. Plaintiff's testimony is to the effect that he had orders not to nail it, but certain braces were to be put in, and it is said that wires were to be put through the frame to keep the sides from expanding when the concrete was put into it.

The testimony in plaintiff's behalf is that after the section had been thus put in place, Bliven "descended from the scaffold in order to get the braces above mentioned, which had been left upon the floor below because of lack of room therefor on the scaffold, leaving plaintiff standing about the middle of the scaffold, holding the inner section of the lintel frame in place by leaning his shoulder against it. He was not supporting its weight, for, as said above, it rested on crossarms, and all that was necessary was to keep it from tipping over. He testified that, as he thus stood, the upper edge of this section was about four inches above his shoulder, and that while he was thus holding it in place the section for some reason began to topple over toward him, and that, owing to the narrowness of the plank upon which he was standing and the insecurity of the scaffold, he was unable to exert sufficient pressure against it to hold it upright, and that in order to avoid being pushed from the scaffold by the falling section he jumped therefrom to the floor below, whereby he sustained the injuries for which he sues.

The testimony for plaintiff goes to show that defendant's superintendent ordered plaintiff to construct the temporary scaffold upon which he was working in the precise manner in which it was constructed; that plaintiff was directed to take one of the "2 by 10" boards which were at hand and place it across the two stepladders. And plaintiff testified that two or three weeks prior to the day of his injury, the superintendent had ordered him not to thereafter make and use for this work scaffolds formed with a number of bricklayers' trestles, and boards, such as plaintiff had been theretofore using, for the reason that this took too much time and was too expensive; but instead to place a plank across two stepladders; and that plaintiff had protested against this.

Plaintiff did not undertake to say what caused the section of the lintel frame to topple over. There is testimony, however, to the effect that there was "quite a little wind blowing" into the window opening and against the section which plaintiff was attempting to keep in place. Plaintiff says that the section suddenly began to press against his shoulder; that he could not move his feet back to brace himself, and could exert only slight pressure against the upright section of the lintel frame for the reason that the reaction tended to push the light scaffold from beneath his feet; and, finding that he was about to be pushed from the plank upon which he was standing, he jumped to the floor,...