Wann v. St. Louis-S. F. Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 14 December 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 43593,LOUIS-S,No. 2,43593,2 |
| Citation | 364 Mo. 492,263 S.W.2d 376 |
| Parties | WANN v. ST.F. RY. CO |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
James L. Homire, C. H. Skinker, Jr., W. W. Dalton, St. Louis, for defendant-appellant.
Mark D. Eagleton, Leland Jones, St. Louis, for respondent.
BARRETT, Commissioner.
In this action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. Sec. 51 et seq., a jury found that the plaintiff, Ray Wann, was injured by reason of negligence on the part of his employer, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company and, accordingly, awarded him $31,000 damages. On January 30, 1951, about 7 o'clock in the evening, a hostler placed an all purpose type Diesel engine on the north or third track in the old Diesel shop and left it with the engine and generator running. Reed, a machinist-inspector, met Wann on the ramp in the new Diesel shop and informed him that the Diesel was 'in the house and that it was smoking and I should go see about it.' Wann went into the old Diesel house, crossed to the third track, entered the engine cab and walked east into the generator room. There, as he looked and saw that 'it wasn't firing enough to ignite the fuel,' he was overcome by smoke and fumes and as he attempted to alight from the engine fell from the cab door and was injured. Wann's right to recover was submitted upon the theory that the railroad was negligent in that it had failed to exercise ordinary care to furnish him a reasonably safe place to work. The negligence specifically hypothesized and submitted was that the plaintiff, in the scope and course of his employment,
'* * * entered the cab of Engine No. 500 and the steam generator room located therein, and if you further find that in said generator room large quantities of smoke and fumes were being emitted therefrom, and that plaintiff was thus and thereby caused to be overcome by said smoke and fumes and to collapse and fall and sustain injuries as a direct and proximate result thereof; and if you further find that the defendant, acting through its employees, did place said engine then and there emitting said smoke and fumes * * * inside said old Diesel switch engine shop, and that the defendant, acting through its said employees, did fail to warn the plaintiff of the fact * * * that large quantities of smoke and fumes were being thus emitted in said generator room when said defendant, acting through its said employees knew, or by the exercise of ordinary care on their part would have known, that the ventilation in said old Diesel switch engine shop and in said Engine No. 500 was inadequate to dissipate and remove said smoke and fumes, if you so find, and that plaintiff's place of work * * * was thus and thereby made unsafe and dangerous, and not reasonably safe, if you so find, and that in thus furnishing said place of work to the plaintiff under the circumstances aforesaid * * * the defendant did then and there fail to exercise ordinary care and was guilty of negligence, and * * * that plaintiff was injured as a direct and proximate result of said negligence on the part of said defendant, then your verdict must be in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant herein.'
The sole question upon this appeal is whether there is any evidence to support the submitted hypothesis and the jury's finding. In contending that there is no evidentiary basis for a finding of negligence the appellant railroad points to the rules that it is not an insurer of the safety of its employees, and that mere proof of an injury or the happening of an accident will not support an inference of negligence. It is said that a railroad is only required to make its place of work and appliances reasonably safe for the purposes and in the circumstances in which they are used and is not bound to make its premises and equipment 'fool proof' or provide the latest and most perfect appliances and is not bound to discard standard appliances or reasonably safe facilities. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Dixon, 5 Cir., 189 F.2d 525; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Craven, 4 Cir., 185 F.2d 176. It is argued that the railroad is not required to anticipate the employee's lack of care for his own safety and that it is not liable for a temporary condition brought about by his negligent use of the facilities provided and, here, that it had no duty to warn Wann of the conditions complained of because they were obvious and known only to him. Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Aeby, 275 U.S. 426, 48 S.Ct. 177, 72 L.Ed. 351; Fore v. Southern Ry. Co., 4 Cir., 178 F.2d 349; Wolfe v. Henwood, 8 Cir., 162 F.2d 998. It is urged, in view of these rules, that the jury could only have found for the plaintiff by resort to mere speculation and conjecture and that the evidence shows that Wann's injuries were caused solely by his own negligence. On the other hand, the respondent urges that 'even close and doubtful cases arising under this legislation are to be submitted to the jury,' and that the judgment is to be affirmed if there is any substantial evidence to support the verdict. Bailey v. Central Vermont Ry. Co., 319 U.S. 350, 63 S.Ct. 1062, 87 L.Ed. 1444; Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 318 U.S. 54, 63 S.Ct. 444, 87 L.Ed. 610, 143 A.L.R. 967; Lavender v. Kurn, 327 U.S. 645, 66 S.Ct. 740, 90 L.Ed. 916; Wilkerson v. McCarthy, 336 U.S. 53, 69 S.Ct. 413, 93 L.Ed. 497. It would serve no useful purpose to again analyze and distinguish the cases relied upon by the parties, it is sufficient to note that this court is familiar with all these cases and the general rules, and the determinative question here is whether 'reasonably fair-minded men', Lavender v. Kurn, supra, could draw different inferences from the facts and circumstances in evidence, if so the railroad's breach of its duty to furnish Wann a reasonably safe place to work was for the jury. Hatfield v. Thompson, Mo.Sup., 252 S.W.2d 534; Winters v. Terminal R. Ass'n, Mo.Sup., 252 S.W.2d 380; Thompson v. Thompson, 362 Mo. 73, 240 S.W.2d 137; Moore v. Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co., 340 U.S. 573, 71 S.Ct. 428, 95 L.Ed. 547; Tennant v. Peoria & Pekin Union R. Co., 321 U.S. 29, 64 S.Ct. 409, 88 L.Ed. 520.
In actions of this type, involving facilities furnished and the condition of premises and whether they constitute a reasonably safe place to work, the test of ultimate liability is 'that negligence, within the meaning of the Federal Employers' Liability Act, attached if respondent 'knew, or by the exercise of due care should have known,' that prevalent standards of conduct were inadequate to protect petitioner and similarly situated employees.' Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 178, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 1028, 93 L.Ed. 1282, 1297; Frizzell v. Wabash R. Co., 8 Cir., 199 F.2d 153, 155. In the Frizzell case, and in Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Craven, supra, and in Fore v. Southern Ry. Co., 4 Cir., 178 F.2d 349, it was not foreseeable by a reasonably prudent person that the prevalent facilities and standards--a set-off for handcars, a switchyard, and the removal of a nut from a bolt with a wrench--were inadequate. Here there was no evidence by either the appellant or the respondent as to the relative standards of ventilation of engine work shops or of Diesel engines on this or other railroads. In Pennsylvania Pulverizing Co. v. Butler, 3 Cir., 61 F.2d 311, 314, the employee charged negligence in failing to use reasonable care to provide a ventilating system to control the dust, but it was said that proof of dust
The railroad's defense to this action was that its facilities were adequate and that it was not negligent, McGivern v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co., 8 Cir., 132 F.2d 213, 217, with respect to the ventilation of either the old engine shop or the generator room in the locomotive. While there was no evidence as to prevalent standards, the railroad's division engineer described the old Diesel house. He testified that there were three front doors, 17 X 14 feet 8 inches, and a back door, 19 X 11 feet 4 inches, all large enough to accommodate a Diesel locomotive. There were two sets of windows and eight monitor windows on the north side. All the doors and windows could be opened in the usual manner by one person. There were 180,990 cubic feet of air space in the Diesel house and 1,787.4 square feet of open door and window space. This man said that the open windows would create a draft in the engine room. It was his opinion that the...
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