Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Artist, 342.

• Decision Date: 12 February 1894
• Docket Number: 342.
• Citation: 60 F. 365
• Parties: UNION PAC. RY. CO. v. ARTIST.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

60 F. 365

UNION PAC. RY. CO. v. ARTIST.

No. 342.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 12, 1894

This writ of error is brought to reverse a judgment against the Union Pacific Railway Company for the malpractice of physicians and the negligence of attendants in a hospital maintained by it, for the benefit of its employes, at Denver in the state of Colorado. The evidence tended to show these facts:

The Union Pacific Railway Company requires each of its employes to contribute from his wages 25 cents a month towards the support of a medical department. The railway company contributes the amount required in addition to the sum thus raised from the contributions of the employes to pay the expenses of this department. At the time the defendant in error was treated at the hospital, the company was contributing from $2,000 to $4,000 per month for this purpose. With this fund the railway company maintained several hospitals for the treatment of its employes when they were sick or injured, and employed physicians and attendants to care for them at the hospitals, and physicians and surgeons to attend them outside the hospitals, at important points on its lines of railroad. All the employes of the railroad company, except those injured in fights, those injured when drunk, those sick from chronic diseases, and those suffering from certain specific diseases, were received and treated at these hospitals free of expense or charge whenever they were sick or injured, regardless of the manner in which, or the time at which, the injury was received or the disease contracted, and whether the railway company had or had not any connection with the cause of it. The physicians attending the hospitals had the privilege of treating their private patients in them, and these patients were the only ones who were required to pay for their board and treatment; but the moneys received from this source were inconsiderable,--not more than $300 per annum. Andrew S Artist, the defendant in error, had his foot and leg injured on the 4th day of October, 1889, while he was in the employment of the company, and was treated at one of the hospitals maintained by it in the way we have stated from October 7, 1889, until January 7, 1890, when he was discharged as cured. In the course of his treatment the physicians at the hospital properly inserted a rubber drainage tube, but, through the carelessness of the physicians or of the attendants, a portion of it was left in the leg as the wound healed, and when he was discharged. It caused suffering and partial disability until it was removed by a surgical operation in April, 1892. January 13, 1890, while both parties were ignorant that this tube remained in the leg, Artist received from the company $150, and signed a receipt or release, the material parts of which are as follows:

'The Union Pacific Railway Company,

'To Andrew S. Artist of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

'1890.

'January 13.

'For amount agreed upon in settlement of claim of Andrew S. Artist against the Union Pacific Railway Company on account of injuries received at McCammon, on Oregon Short Line, on October 4, 1889, while assisting in switching a burning baggage car from main track to side track, said Artist being an engineer in the employ of said company, but returning from leave of absence at time of accident, said injury consisting of deep, punctured, and lacerated wounds, as follows: On inner surface of right thigh. On inner surface of right foot. Comp. fracture of fourth toe of right foot. Contusion in region of spine. Contusion on left foot and face. (Settlement is in full of all claims and demands of whatever character.) * * *

'Received, Pocatello, Idaho, January 13, 1890, of the Union Pacific Railway Company, one hundred and fifty dollars in full payment of the above account. In consideration of the payment of said sum of money, I, Andrew S. Artist, of Cheyenne, in the county of Laramie, in the state of Wyoming, hereby remise, release, and forever discharge the said company, its operated, leased, controlled, and auxiliary lines and companies, of and from all manner of actions, causes of action, suits, debts and sums of money, dues, claims and demands, whatsoever, in law or equity, which I have had or now have against said company by reason of any matter, cause, or thing whatever, whether the same arose upon contract or upon tort, from the beginning of the world to this day.

'In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirteenth day of January, 1890.'

Counsel for the company requested the court to charge the jury that this release was a complete defense to the action, and the refusal to give that request is the first error assigned. The same counsel requested the court to charge the jury as follows: 'If you believe from the evidence that the hospital was maintained by the defendant, not for the purpose of deriving profit therefrom, but as a charitable enterprise, so far as defendant's employes were received therein, then the only obligation of the defendant, in receiving its employes at said hospital, was to use ordinary care in selecting its physicians and attendants therein; and, since no negligence in the employment of physicians is here charged, you will, in case you find the hospital to have been maintained as above stated, find for the defendant.' The court refused to give this instruction, and charged the jury that the hospital was not a charitable institution, in any sense that those words are used in the law, and that the company was bound to use reasonable care to see that the treatment given to patients in this hospital was such as was ordinarily given in hospitals of this kind to such patients; and this ruling is the second error complained of.

John W. Lacey (John M. Thurston and Willis Van Devanter, on the brief), for plaintiff in error.

Frank H. Clark, for defendant in error.

Before SANBORN, Circuit Judge, and THAYER, District Judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge, after stating the facts as above, .

General words, alone, in a release, are taken most strongly against the releasor. But when there is a particular recital followed by general words the latter are qualified by the particular recital. Jackson v. Stackhouse, 1 Cow. 122, 126, and cases cited; 2 Pars. Cont. 633, note. The court below properly applied this rule to the release in this case. The general words in the last half of it are limited by the very specific recital of the injuries that the $150 was to be in settlement of, which is contained in the first half of the release. It was the claims for these injuries, and for these only, that this release discharged the company from. The injury now complained of was then unknown to both parties, and their settlement was without reference to it. A disregard of the rule would work manifest injustice, and impose upon the defendant in error a release he did not intend to make. There was no error in this ruling.

Was the company liable for the malpractice of the physicians, or the carelessness of the attendants, at the hospital, if that hospital was maintained as a charitable enterprise, and not for the purpose of...