Union Bridge Co. v. Teehan

• Decision Date: 18 April 1901
• Citation: 60 N.E. 533,190 Ill. 374
• Parties: UNION BRIDGE CO. et al. v. TEEHAN.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

190 Ill. 374

60 N.E. 533

UNION BRIDGE CO. et al.

v.TEEHAN.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 18, 1901.

Appeal from appellate court, First district.

Action by Timothy J. Teehan against the Union Bridge Company and others. From a judgment of the appellate court (92 Ill. App. 259) affirming a judgment in plaintiff's favor, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

O. W. Dynes, for appellants.

Edward J. Judd, for appellee.

BOGGS, C. J.

The judgment in the sum of $10,000 against the appellant companies, awarded the appellee in the superior court of Cook county on the verdict of a jury, in an action on the case, as damages for injuries inflicted on the person of the appellee by reason, as alleged in the declaration, of the negligence of the appellant companies, was affirmed by the appellate court for the First district on appeal, and the judgment of affirmance is now before us for review on this the further appeal of said companies.

At the close of all the evidence in the trial court a motion was entered in behalf of the appellant companies for a peremptory instruction to the jury to return a verdict of not guilty, but the motion was denied. It is not complained in this court that the trial court erred in any ruling relative to the admissibility of testimony, or in granting or refusing instructions, or otherwise in any matter of law, save in refusing to grant the instruction directing a peremptory verdict in favor of the appellant companies. Whether the alleged negligence was that of one Thomas Clayton, a fellow servant of appellee, or whether notice of the alleged defect in the machinery whereby, as the appellee alleged, his injuries were occasioned, was in apt time brought home to the appellant companies, were the subjects of conflicting testimony, and, in the absence of any complaints of erroneous rulings of law with relation to them, are questions of fact, and as such are conclusively settled adversely to the appellant companies by the action of the appellate court. But a single question, therefore, arises, namely, whether the evidence produced before the jury, with all the inferences proper to be drawn therefrom, fairly tended to prove the cause of action set out in the declaration. If such was not the state of the proof, the court should have peremptorily directed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.

The material allegations of the declaration are found in the following extract therefrom: ‘Plaintiff avers that it was then and there the duty of the said defendants to furnish reasonably safe and good machinery for the purpose of doing such hoisting, as aforesaid, yet said defendants, wholly unmindful of their duty in that behalf, carelessly and negligently failed to furnish reasonable and good hoisting machinery, but furnished for the conduct of the said work of erecting said elevated street railroad defective and unfit hoisting machinery, in that a certain pin in said hoisting machinery, by which was held a certain lever, which lever operated that portion of said hoisting machinery which held the beam upon which said plaintiff then and there was, as aforesaid, was loose, worn, and defective, and on account of its defective condition became unloosened and slipped out of its place, and failed to hold the said lever in position in which it should have held the same, and this cause the beam upon which the said plaintiff then and there was to be precipitated from a great height, to wit, the height of thirty feet, and caused the said plaintiff to fall with the same.’

A brief reference to the testimony is necessary. The Union Bridge Company and the Elmira Bridge Company, the appellants, were in April, 1897, engaged, on joint account, in constructing the Northwestern Elevated road, in Chicago. In the erection of the elevated structure there was used a device known as a ‘traveler,’ which consisted of certain derricks operated by a steam engine. The steam engine was in a rough board shed, and could be moved along on top of the elevated structure as the work progressed. In front of it, and at a distance of 30 or 40 feet, were set certain derricks. By means of these derricks, worked by the engine, the large iron beams and columns of which the elevated structure was to be constructed were lifted from the ground and set in place, and held there while they were being fastened. The appellee, an employé of said companies, in the regular course of...