Sharble v. Kuehnle-Wilson, Inc.
Decision Date | 24 May 1948 |
Docket Number | 2267 |
Citation | 59 A.2d 58,359 Pa. 494 |
Parties | Sharble et al. v. Kuehnle-Wilson, Inc., Appellant |
Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued April 22, 1948
Appeals, Nos. 74 and 75, Jan. T., 1948, from judgments of Common Pleas Nos. 4 and 2, Philadelphia Co., June T., 1944 Nos. 2251 and 2252, respectively, in case of Joseph C Sharble v. Kuehnle-Wilson, Inc., and Charles Hooker v. Same. Judgments reversed; reargument refused July 6, 1948, October 1, 1948.
Trespass for personal injuries. Before OLIVER, P.J.
Voluntary nonsuits taken by plaintiffs as to defendants, Raymond Concrete Pile Company and Heppenstall-Eddystone Corporation verdicts in the sum of $15,000 in favor of plaintiff Hooker and in the sum of $15,000 in favor of plaintiff Sharble and against defendant Kuehnle-Wilson and judgments entered thereon. Defendant filed separate appeals.
Judgments reversed, and here entered for defendant, Kuehnle-Wilson, Inc.
Joseph W. Henderson, with him Harrison G. Kildare, George M. Brodhead and Rawle & Henderson, for appellant.
George H. Detweiler, with him Robert A. Detweiler and Albert S. Herskowitz, for appellees.
Before MAXEY, C.J., DREW, LINN, STERN, PATTERSON, STEARNE and JONES, JJ.
Plaintiffs, Joseph C. Sharble and Charles Hooker, brought individual suits in trespass to recover damages for injuries sustained by them while laying a steel roof on the machine shop of the Heppenstall-Eddystone Corporation at Eddystone, Pennsylvania. These actions were instituted against defendants, Heppenstall-Eddystone Corporation, Raymond Concrete Pile Company, and Kuehnle-Wilson, Inc. The suits were tried together, and, after the jury retired but before verdicts were returned, plaintiffs took voluntary nonsuits as to the first two defendants. The jury rendered verdicts in favor of plaintiffs and against defendant, Kuehnle-Wilson, Inc. Defendant's motions for judgment n.o.v. and for a new trial having been dismissed and judgments having been entered on the verdicts, these appeals followed.
Viewing the testimony in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, as we are required to do under these circumstances, the following pertinent facts appear: Both plaintiffs were sheet metal workers employed by Eric Welding Company, a subcontractor, in putting a Holorib steel roof on an extension to a building, owned by defendant, Heppenstall-Eddystone Corporation, and being erected by defendant, Raymond Concrete Pile Company. The other defendant, Kuehnle-Wilson, Inc., was the painting subcontractor under the general contract. Neither subcontractor, Eric Welding Company or Kuehnle-Wilson, Inc., had authority or control over the work or the employees of the other.
The building being erected was of steel framework, with steel uprights and cross pieces, forming the sides. It was approximately 1,000 feet long, 87 feet wide and 50 feet high. A ventilating monitor ran lengthwise along the peak of the roof. The roof structure was supported by steel girders, which extended, 16 feet apart, from the eaves to the monitor. Each 16-foot space between these roof girders is known as a bay. Purlins, or small beams about 2 inches wide across the top, ran across each bay, at 6-foot intervals, parallel with the eaves, and connected the girders. The purlins constituted the framework on which the steel roof was to be laid. The roof slanted downward from the monitor to the eaves at a pitch or drop of about 4 feet over a distance of 46 feet, or approximately 6 inches in 6 feet.
The Holorib steel roof consisted of prefabricated sections of light gauge sheet steel, the sheets being used in this construction being 6 feet long and 18 inches wide. Two wedge-shaped ribs were pressed lengthwise in each sheet, with a third full rib, U-shaped, running down one long side and a half rib, L-shaped, down the other side. The half rib, shaped like an "L", was designed to fit into the U-shaped rib extending down the side of the sheet laid next to it, making a substantially continuous surface on the weather side of the roof.
In laying these sheets, it was the custom to place them at right angles to the side of the building, beginning at the end wall at the lower edge, or eave. They are laid rib-side down, across the eave girder and first purlin. After the first sheet is laid, the next one is placed along side with its "L" side overlapping into the "U" side of the first sheet, and so on until all 12 sheets in the first run or course across the first bay are laid. The second run in that bay is then laid, and so on up to the monitor until the first bay is finished. The first sheet of the run is securely anchored when laid, by being spotwelded to the eave girder and to the first purlin. The other sheets in that run ar held in place merely by the interlocking process along the sides, until the run is completed, then they are driven into position with a mallet and welded to the building superstructure. The sheets in the second and any succeeding bay are not welded until the entire run across that bay is placed in position and fully adjusted. In laying these sheets successively from one side of a bay to the other, it is necessary for the roofers to walk on the sheets they have just laid.
The employees of the Erie Welding Company had completed and tack-welded the entire first bay of the roof. As it is customary to have the purlins, girders and other structural metal work of the roof painted before the sheets are laid, Lundy, superintendent of the Eric Welding Company roofers, on July 19, 1942, requested Loftus, foreman of the painters employed by defendant, Kuehnle-Wilson, Inc., to get the second bay ready for the roofing men to lay the additional metal roofing. Following that request, Loftus the next day caused several bays to be painted adjoining the first bay on which the roofing sheets had been laid. On July 21, 1942, he informed Lundy that these bays had been painted, that they were ready for use and it was all right for the roofers to work on them. In the early afternoon of that day, Lundy sent three sheet metal workers, both plaintiffs and one Greenhalg, on the roof to lay the roofing sheets across the second bay. Greenhalg received the sheets as they were hoisted from the ground, took them off the pulley and carried them to plaintiffs, who started to lay them.
Plaintiffs interlocked the first sheet of the first, or eave, run in the second bay into the last sheet of the first run in the first bay, and proceeded to lay the additional sheets, interlocking them one with the other. About 2 o'clock in the afternoon, when these roofers were laying the sixth sheet in that run, that sheet and the others which they had just laid slipped off the purlin. P...
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