Standard Oil Company v. Abraham Brown

• Decision Date: 31 May 1910
• Docket Number: No. 168,168
• Citation: 30 S.Ct. 669,54 L.Ed. 939,218 U.S. 78
• Parties: STANDARD OIL COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. ABRAHAM BROWN
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

218 U.S. 78

30 S.Ct. 669

54 L.Ed. 939

STANDARD OIL COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v ABRAHAM BROWN.

No. 168.

Argued April 22, 25, 1910.

Decided May 31, 1910.

Messrs. A. Leftwich Sinclair and Joseph J. Darlington for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 78-81 intentionally omitted] Messrs. W. Gwynn Gardiner, Creed M. Fulton, A. E. L. Leckie, and Joseph W. Cox for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice McKenna delivered the opinion of the court:

This action was brought in the supreme court of the District of Columbia for damages for injuries alleged to have been received by defendant in error while in the employment of plaintiff in error and through its negligence

The case was tried to a jury, which rendered a verdict in favor of the defendant in error in the sum of $6,500, upon which judgment was duly entered. It was affirmed by the court of appeals.

The assignments of error are based on certain instructions asked by the company which the trial court refused to give, the chief of which requested the court to direct the jury to find a verdict for the company upon the following grounds: (1) There was a fatal variance between the pleadings and the proof. (2) The injury to defendant in error was not caused by the negligence of the company, but by the negligence of a fellow servant or his own contributory negligence.

The first ground is the principal one discussed by counsel, and turns upon a consideration of the declaration and the proof.

An outline of the facts contained in the opinion of the court of appeals is as follows:

'The plaintiff entered the employ of the defendant in January, 1904, as an oil tank wagon driver. His duties required him to take a team and wagon from defendant's barn in the morning, and, after using it during the day in the delivery of oil, return it to the barn in the evening. The plaintiff was required to groom his team in addition to his duties of delivering oil. The barn in which the horses were kept was 30 feet wide and 50 feet long. It contained two rows of stalls, one on either side, with a space of 12 feet between, extending the full length of the barn. In the ceiling, above the space between the stalls and about the middle of the barn, there was an opening 4 feet square, surrounded on the floor of the loft above by a wooden inclosure or box about 4 feet high. In the loft was stored baled straw, which was used for bedding the horses.

'It further appears that for about nine years one Coleman had been employed by the defendant, and among his duties was that of bedding the horses; that, during the period of his employment, Coleman had been accustomed to throw bales of straw through the opening in the ceiling from the loft to the floor below. In doing so it was necessary to lift the bale up to the top of the box or inclosure in the loft and push it over, so that it would fall through the opening. Plaintiff received the injuries complained of on February 2, 1904, by being struck by a bale of straw dropped by Coleman from the loft through said opening.

* * * * *

'There was evidence adduced at the trial to show that plaintiff had never been advised by the defendant, or any of the defendant's employees, either of the existence of the opening in the ceiling or the purpose for which it was used. Plaintiff testied to this effect, and further, that during the period of his employment,—less than two weeks,—he was required to leave the barn with his wagon to deliver oil at 6 o'clock in the morning, and that he did not complete the delivery of the oil and return to the barn until 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening. At the time of year that he was employed,—in January,—he left the barn before daylight in the morning and returned after dark in the evening. It also appears that the barn was poorly lighted, there being but a small oil lamp at each end of the passageway between the stalls.

'The witness Coleman testified that he not only notified plaintiff of the use made of the opening in the ceiling, but warned him before throwing down the bale of straw that injured him.'

Defendant in error denied 'that Coleman either called his attention to the hole, or explained its use, or gave him any warning on the evening of the accident. Coleman is not corroborated by any of the employees, as to his custom of calling out to persons before throwing straw through the opening.'

The declaration contained four counts, in the first three of which, with some verbal variations, it is alleged that it was the company's duty to have the 'hole or opening' in the ceiling of the stable so guarded that the bales of hay in the loft above would not fall or pass through and fall upon defendant in error, or upon those engaged in the performance of their duties in the stable. This duty, it is alleged, was neglected, and a bale of hay was allowed to fall through the hole on the defendant in error.

Those counts may be dismissed from consideration, as defendant in error does not contend that the proof corresponds to them.

The fourth count, it is insisted, has such correspondence, and expresses the grounds upon which the case was tried. The following are the pertinent allegations of that count:

'It became and was also the duty of the said defendant not to permit the said hay and feed to be thus passed through the said hole or opening without proper warning or timely notice to those employed in the stable below . . . and to give its employees engaged in handling or placing the hay and feed as aforsaid, as well as to those who were employed in the stable below, such proper and necessary instructions with respect to the dangers of passing the hay and feed through the said hole or opening, and the performance of their respective duties, as to prevent injury and danger to the lives and limbs of the employees engaged in the stable below; yet the defendant . . . did not . . . do any of the duties that it was called upon to discharge in the...