Southern Cotton Oil Co. v. Woods
Decision Date | 18 April 1918 |
Docket Number | 4 Div. 777 |
Citation | 78 So. 907,201 Ala. 553 |
Parties | SOUTHERN COTTON OIL CO. v. WOODS. |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Houston County; H.A. Pearce, Judge.
Action by F.W. Woods against the Southern Cotton Oil Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Transferred from the Court of Appeals under Act April 18, 1911, p. 449, § 6. Affirmed.
Steiner Crum & Weil, of Montgomery, and B.F. Reid, of Dothan, for appellant.
T.M Espy, of Dothan, for appellee.
The action was by an employé against his employer to recover damages for personal injuries. The complaint was based on our Employers' Liability Act.
The only negligence alleged or relied upon was that imputed to the employer's superintendent under the second subdivision of the statute (section 3910 of the Code). The particular negligence charged to this superintendent was his failure to warn plaintiff that he had connected a belt with a certain pulley operating the spike roller, a part of a cotton gin, and certain other parts of the machinery of the gin at which plaintiff was at work at the time in question, with the result that plaintiff's hand was caught by the spikes of the roller and severely mangled. The alleged specific negligence is set up in one of the counts as follows:
The defendant demurred to each count of the complaint. The demurrers were sustained as to each count of the original complaint, but were overruled as to each count of the amended complaint. The amendment consisted of two new or additional counts, numbered 3 and 4.
The trial court ruled correctly in each instance. Each count of the original complaint was subject to demurrer under the rules announced by this court in the cases of Cahaba Co. v. Elliott, 183 Ala. 298, 62 So. 808, and Woodward Co. v. Marbut, 183 Ala. 310, 62 So. 804. In those cases our former rulings were reviewed, and in the latter it was said (183 Ala. 312, 62 So. 804):
In the same opinion (183 Ala. 313, 62 So. 805), speaking to the rule of this court, it was further said:
Counts 3 and 4, added by amendment, each met the rules required by these two cases, and also the rules required by a number of other cases, to the effect that all negligence is not actionable, and pleadings, to be sufficient to state a cause of action grounded on negligence, must affirmatively show that the negligence relied upon is actionable. Smith's Case, 171 Ala. 255, 55 So. 170.
If pleadings as to negligence show a duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff and a breach of that duty to the damage or injury of plaintiff, very general averments of negligence will suffice. As is often said, they need be but little more than conclusions; but the duty and its breach must be shown. Merely alleging that a given act was negligence or was negligently done, without more, is not sufficient. Such pleadings may allege negligence, but the trouble is it is not in such cases "actionable negligence." 171 Ala 255, 55 So. 170. "The decisions," observed Lord Campbell, ...
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