Thompson v. Cudahy Packing Co.

• Citation: 151 N.W. 470,171 Iowa 579
• Decision Date: 16 March 1915
• Docket Number: No. 30142.,30142.
• Parties: THOMPSON v. CUDAHY PACKING CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

171 Iowa 579

151 N.W. 470

THOMPSON

v.CUDAHY PACKING CO.

No. 30142.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

March 16, 1915.

Appeal from District Court, Woodbury County; David Mould, Judge.

Action at law to recover damages for personal injury. There was a directed verdict and judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.O. E. Martin and W. E. Gantt, both of Sioux City, for appellant.

Sears & Snyder, of Sioux City, for appellee.

WEAVER, J.

The defendant corporation is a meat packer at Sioux City, Iowa, and at the time in question plaintiff was one of its employés in that business. His work at that time was the dressing or trimming of shoulders of pork which were brought into his room or place of employment upon a conveyor or carrier of some kind. It was his business to receive and trim them and throw them into a truck or trucks, which were provided for their removal. The injury of which he complains he alleges was caused in the following manner: That, while he was at work at his proper table, the defendant neglected and failed to keep him supplied with trucks with sufficient promptness to enable him to remove the shoulders as fast as they were trimmed, with the consequence that they accumulated on the table to a considerable height, rendering the place unsafe, and, as he was at work, a shoulder coming in on the conveyor was thrown upon the table or fell from the pile accumulated there, striking the sharp knife held by plaintiff, driving it through his hand in such manner as to severely cut and injure his index finger, from which injury he suffered pain and loss of time, and the wounded finger has thereby been made stiff and useless, and is a detriment to his capacity and efficiency as a working man. The petition is denied by the answer. There is also an attempt to plead an assumption of the risk of the dangers such as appellant complains of.

[1][2] I. The question presented by the record is whether plaintiff made a case on which he was entitled to a verdict of the jury. In answering this inquiry, he is entitled to the benefit of all the facts which the evidence offered by him tends to prove, giving them the most favorable construction of which they are fairly susceptible in support of his claim. Even when thus considered, we think the conclusion inevitable that the ruling of the trial court must be sustained. The fatal defect in plaintiff's case is his failure to show actionable negligence on the part of defendant, and this, we think, must be the holding, though we concede the literal truth of all the testimony given by him, and of all the matters of fact which he offered to prove, but which were excluded on the defendant's objection. If it should be...