Weston v. Hillyer

• Decision Date: 09 June 1931
• Docket Number: 13170.
• Parties: WESTON v. HILLYER.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

159 S.E. 390

160 S.C. 541

WESTON
v.
HILLYER.

No. 13170.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

June 9, 1931

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Charleston County; J. Henry Johnson, Judge.

Action by Joe Weston against Charles E. Hillyer, doing business as the Hillyer Construction Company. From a judgment of nonsuit, plaintiff appeals.

Appeal dismissed, and judgment affirmed.

M. A. McLaughlin, Jr., of Charleston, for appellant.

Huger, Wilbur, Miller & Mouzon, of Charleston, for respondent.

BONHAM, J.

Appellant was employed by respondent, a contractor who was engaged in doing concrete work on Cooper River bridge; the special work in which plaintiff was engaged was that of picking chips out of the concrete before it was poured into the receptacles provided for it along the side of the bridge where a walkway was to be constructed. Suspended along the handrails, and attached thereto by wire at both ends, were steel bars about thirty feet long and about six inches wide, which were to be let into place in the concrete when ready. They were about four feet above the place where the walkway was to be, and were strung all along the length of the bridge. One of these bars, suspended above the place where appellant was at work, fell upon him, and injured his leg. This action is brought to recover damages for such injury. The allegations of negligence upon which the action is predicated are: (a) Failing and omitting to provide plaintiff with reasonably safe place to work; (b) failing and omitting to keep a proper lookout; (c) failing and omitting to properly inspect and supervise the work plaintiff was commanded to do; (d) failing and omitting to adopt a proper method for carrying out the work plaintiff was commanded to do; (e) failing and omitting to properly supervise as the work proceeded; (f) requiring and commanding plaintiff to work in a position which the defendant knew, or by the exercise of reasonable diligence could have known, was an unsafe place; (g) permitting said piece of steel to be sustained above the plaintiff by a support which defendant knew, or should have known, was inadequate.

The case came to trial before Judge Johnson and a jury at October, 1930, term of court for Charleston county. At [160 S.C. 544] the conclusion of the testimony for the plaintiff, counsel for the defendant made a motion for nonsuit on the grounds that: The plaintiff had failed to establish any relationship between the defendant, Hillyer, and the steel rail which caused the injury, and that he had failed to establish any act of negligence whatsoever on the part of the defendant, Hillyer, and that he had failed to account in any particular for the cause of the rail failing, and has therefore failed to establish any negligence on the part of the defendant Hillyer.

The motion was granted, principally upon the authority of the case of Watson v. Stevedoring Co., 141 S.C. 355, 139 S.E. 778, and the cases cited in support of that decision.

Plaintiff appeals upon three exceptions, but counsel for appellant and respondent agree, in argument, that: "The only...