Standard Oil Co. v. Martin
| Decision Date | 13 October 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 7775.,7775. |
| Citation | 21 F.2d 912 |
| Parties | STANDARD OIL CO. OF LOUISIANA v. MARTIN. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
T. M. Milling, of Shreveport, La., and T. J. Gaughan, J. T. Sifford, J. E. Gaughan and E. E. Godwin, all of Camden, Ark., for plaintiff in error.
Before SANBORN and BOOTH, Circuit Judges, and MILLER, District Judge.
In the court below the defendant in error recovered of the plaintiff in error judgment in the sum of $4,500, for personal injuries to his leg, on account of the alleged negligence of plaintiff in error in the driving of its truck on which the defendant in error was riding. The injury and the extent thereof is admitted, and no question is made as to the amount of the recovery, if any recovery was warranted under the facts, which may be stated most favorably to the defendant in error, as follows:
On the 21st day of November, 1925, he was in the employ of the plaintiff in error (hereinafter called the company), in Union county, Ark., as a general roustabout and extra gang man in connection with its work in and about the oil fields of Union county. Under defendant in error's contract with the company it was the company's duty to transport defendant in error from his place of work to his home or its vicinity.
On that day, at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the defendant in error, in company with two or three other men similarly employed and a negro truck driver, under one Bill Griffin, a foreman of the company, having completed the taking down of an oil derrick, were ready to return to the company's warehouse some miles away. This return, as usual, was to be made in the company's truck, an ordinary Ford truck, with a seat in front for the driver and one other person, with a panel immediately behind the driver's seat, rising higher than the driver's head, with a small glass window in the back of the panel. Immediately behind the driver's seat and this panel was a tool box, rising out of the bed of the truck and higher than the bed of the truck. On each side of the truck the frame extended up about a foot and a half in height from the bed of the truck, with standards placed along the sides at intervals; the standards coming up higher than the sides of the truck.
On this occasion, just before the truck started for the warehouse, the company's foreman, Bill Griffin, said to one of the men, "Put a board across the truck to ride on and get on; we are going to the warehouse." At that time the defendant in error and one of the men were seated on the tool box above described, with their backs toward the driver's seat. The foreman, Griffin, and the negro driver were on the front seat, with their backs toward the defendant in error. Upon this command, one of the men picked up a board and placed it crosswise on the truck, immediately in front of defendant in error and the tool box on which he was seated, so that the board rested on the sides of the bed of the truck, and the two other men then got upon the truck and seated themselves on this board, facing the defendant in error. This board extended over the edge of the truck on one side, the exact distance not being shown by the record. Thereupon the truck started for the warehouse along and over a road usually traveled when driving from the vicinity in which the truck started to return to the warehouse. The defendant in error on other occasions had returned to the company's warehouse or its vicinity on that same truck, over the same road. At the time of the placing of the board across the truck, he saw the men pick up the board, and saw it placed across the truck, and either saw or must be presumed to have seen that one end of the board extended out beyond the edge of the bed of the truck. The truck, proceeding along the road at about 12 to 15 miles an hour, reached a point at which there were two trees, opposite each other, one on each side of the road and close to the wheel tracks thereof, the location of which the defendant in error well knew....
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