Somogyi v. Cincinnati, NO & TP Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 10 February 1939
• Docket Number: No. 7734.,7734.
• Citation: 101 F.2d 480
• Parties: SOMOGYI v. CINCINNATI, N. O. & T. P. RY. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

101 F.2d 480 (1939)

SOMOGYI v. CINCINNATI, N. O. & T. P. RY. CO.

No. 7734.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

February 10, 1939.

John S. Cooper and R. C. Tartar, both of Somerset, Ky., for appellant.

George R. Hunt, of Lexington, Ky. (Maurice L. Galvin, of Cincinnati, Ohio, B. J. Bethurum, of Somerset, Ky., and Geo. R. Hunt and J. R. Bush, both of Lexington, Ky., on the brief), for appellee.

Before HICKS, SIMONS, and ALLEN, Circuit Judges.

SIMONS, Circuit Judge.

The appellant sued to recover for the death of the decedent resulting from injuries received by him while employed in the defendant's machine shop. The District Court, after excluding evidence of statements made by the decedent while still suffering from pain and shock and in a highly nervous state as to the cause and manner of the injuries, proffered under the res gestæ rule, directed a verdict for the defendant. The errors complained of are the exclusion of the evidence and the peremptory verdict.

No one saw the accident. The known facts, however, are that the decedent was in proximity to a defective polishing machine, that within five minutes after he had been seen in that position he was observed holding a piece of moistened waste to his head, and upon inquiry responded, "That machine hurt me." An idler pulley displaced from the machine was on its table, and the bolt and nut by which it had been confined in the assembly were in the decedent's hand. The thread had been stripped from the bolt and the bolt itself had been filed off to the extent of about one-third, a condition that could not have been seen except by close inspection. The injury occurred on the 26th day of June, 1935. Some time thereafter the decedent left for home and did not return to work. On the 30th day of June he became very ill, on the 9th of July he was taken to a hospital, where the following day he died. Death was due to hemorrhage resulting from a fracture of the cranium.

There was substantial evidence of negligence in respect to the defective appliance. The evidence does not indicate the defect in the machine to have been so obvious as to warrant invoking the doctrine of assumed risk. We assume, therefore, that the legal principle upon which the motion for directed verdict was granted was the failure of the evidence to show a causal relation between the defendant's failure of duty and the injury which occurred.

When proofs are such that two or more reasonable inferences may be drawn from the known facts in respect to negligence, or that the negligence was proximately the cause of an injury, they present no more than a choice of probabilities, and the plaintiff must fail, since the burden of proof is on him. Davlin v. Henry Ford & Son, 6 Cir., 20 F.2d 317; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Bell, 6 Cir., 206 F. 395; Toledo, St. L. & W. Railway Co. v. Howe, 6 Cir., 191 F. 776; Parker v. Gulf Refining Co., 6 Cir., 80 F.2d 795; O'Mara v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 6 Cir., 95 F.2d 762, 763. The present record, however, presents more than such choice. The appliance was defective, the man was injured in proximity to it, and the causal relation of the negligence to the injury is shown, at least prima facie, by the statement of the decedent received in evidence. In the absence of controverting proof, or a demonstration of physical facts to destroy its persuasiveness, there was substantial evidence upon which to present to the jury an issue as to causal relation between the defective appliance and the injury, and the court should have overruled the motion for directed verdict.

Since the case must be retried, it becomes...