Quinn v. St. Paul Boiler & Manufacturing Company

• Decision Date: 29 January 1915
• Docket Number: 18,948 - (174)
• Citation: Quinn v. St. Paul Boiler & Manufacturing Company, 150 N.W. 919, 128 Minn. 270 (Minn. 1915)
• Parties: WILLIAM QUINN v. ST. PAUL BOILER & MANUFACTURING COMPANY
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

150 N.W. 919

128 Minn. 270

WILLIAM QUINN v. ST. PAUL BOILER & MANUFACTURING COMPANY

Nos. 18,948 - (174)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

January 29, 1915

Action in the district court for Ramsey county to recover $32,000 for personal injuries received while in defendant's employ. The case was tried before Dickson, J., and a jury which returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff for $9,850. From an order denying defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial, it appealed. Affirmed on condition.

SYLLABUS

Injury to servant -- judgment non obstante.

1. In this a personal injury action by a servant against his master, there is not such an absence of evidence to sustain an alleged failure of the master to discharge one of his absolute duties that defendant is entitled to judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

Evidence.

2. There is ample evidence to establish the facts which under the court's instruction warranted a recovery. No error is assigned upon the charge, and, right or wrong, it must be accepted as the law of this case.

Damages excessive.

3. The damages awarded are considered excessive.

Denegre & McDermott and Harry S. Stearns, for appellant.

Duxbury Conzett & Pettijohn, for respondent.

OPINION

HOLT, J.

Plaintiff while working for defendant was injured. This action followed the injury being attributed to defendant's negligence. Defendant appeals from the order denying its alternative motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial.

The defendant is a corporation engaged, among other things, in putting up, taking down and moving metal smokestacks, metal breeching, etc., in factories and large buildings. On Saturday, July 5, 1913, defendant started to move the smokestack and take down the breeching in the boiler room of the Waldorf Box Board Co. in St. Paul. It was to be done in three days. This room is about 50 by 60 feet in dimension. The boilers are in the northwest corner and extend south to within 25 feet of the south wall. The smokestack, about 4 1/2 feet in diameter, of sheet steel, stood at the time within a foot of the south wall and about 25 feet from the southwest corner of the room. The smoke and gases were conducted from the vent of the boilers near the west wall by a huge pipe, variously estimated as 4 feet wide by 5, 7, or 9 feet high, made of sheet steel, riveted together. This pipe, called the breeching, passed from the boilers south along the west wall, but at a distance of from 2 to 3 feet therefrom, and at a height between the bottom thereof and the floor, of 18 or 20 feet. When within 3 or 4 feet from the south wall, it branched in two directions, each branch being of the same dimensions as before stated. One of these branches turned to the east and ran along the south wall, at a distance therefrom of about 3 or 4 feet, and at the same height from the floor as already stated, until it reached the smokestack which it entered by means of an elbow. The other branch dropped down to the floor and ran along upon the floor, directly beneath the one above, until it reached, and also entered the stack. The part of the stack between where the two branches of breeching entered contained, or was called, the fan. Four or five 16 or 18 inch iron I beams ran across the room from north to south at about the same height as the bottom of the breeching, that is 18 or 20 feet from the floor. These I beams supported a contrivance for heating the water before it entered the boilers. It is spoken of as the economizer. Its shape or dimension is not given but it evidently needed some attention, for the owners of the factory had laid upon the I beams a plank platform, which came within about 12 feet of the south wall, so as to have ready access to the economizer, the top of the boilers, and whatever machinery and appliances were located at that height. The platform was reached from a ladder on the east side of the room.

Defendant's undertaking was to move the smokestack from the south wall and place it against the west wall of the room. This necessitated taking down the stack, and removing the breeching, at least all thereof parallel with the south wall. On the Saturday mentioned, a crew of four or five men under a foreman, accompanied by Oscar W. Olson, an officer and superintendent of defendant, began the work. The foreman and part of the crew worked on the outside, rigging up a gin-pole, an instrumentality necessary in taking down large smokestacks. Olson and the others worked inside. The record is vague as to what particular work was done inside on Saturday. Plaintiff contends that preparation was then made by placing planks as staging for the larger crew which was expected there Sunday. But undoubtedly some rivet cutting upon the breeching took place on Saturday and perhaps part thereof was then removed. Plaintiff was working for defendant Saturday, but in another part of the city. Sunday morning he, with some other men, was set to work in this boiler room cutting rivets upon the breeching. No scaffold, properly speaking, had been erected on Saturday, and none was erected on Sunday. But it appears that the men got to the breeching from the platform and I beams mentioned, and, when the beams and permanent structures did not furnish the needed place whereon to work, planks, procured from somewhere on the premises, were laid upon the I beams or other pipes or supports found at that height in the room. Whether one or more planks were used on the north and east side of the breeching is left in uncertainty, but the evidence shows three planks laid between the breeching and the walls -- one along the south wall, one along the west wall, and one witness seems to think that another shorter plank was laid across the corner in some way. When plaintiff in obedience to Olson's order, as he claims, went to cut rivets between the breeching and the walls he had to pass over the plank laid along the south wall. It was insecurely placed at the west end and wabbled or tipped, causing plaintiff to fall.

The jury were justified in finding that this plank was placed there on Saturday, July 5, although Gust Wonhala, the man who worked with plaintiff at the time of the accident, testified that he and plaintiff procured the plank on Sunday forenoon and placed it in position.

The question presented is: Assuming that this plank was negligently placed in an unsafe position on Saturday, when plaintiff was working at another place, by one of defendant's...