White v. Nutriline Milling Co

• Decision Date: 20 October 1913
• Docket Number: 19,514
• Citation: 133 La. 870,63 So. 385
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: WHITE v. NUTRILINE MILLING CO

63 So. 385

133 La. 870

WHITE v. NUTRILINE MILLING CO

No. 19,514

Supreme Court of Louisiana

October 20, 1913

Rehearing Denied November 17, 1913

SYLLABUS

(Syllabus by the Court.)

This case falls within the well-settled principles that the burden rests upon the master to see that the place where the servant is required to do his work, and the ingress and egress thereto and therefrom, are reasonably safe, and are kept so that it is the duty of the master to instruct and warn the servant, and particularly a minor or other person who may lack experience or intelligence, of the dangers incidental to, or connected with, the service that he is to render; that an ignorant boy will not be denied damages for injuries received by him, in the course of his employment, where it appears that he was acting, when injured, as other employes were accustomed to act, to the knowledge and with the apparent approval of the master, and that no other course, or mode of action, was suggested to him.

In view of the plaintiff's youth, of the fact that he is, and must be, dependent upon his ability to do manual labor for his livelihood, and is, to a great extent, deprived of that ability by the injury that he has sustained; in view of the very great suffering that he has endured, and of the fact that, in addition to being crippled for life, he is left with a dangling leg, which is of no use to him, but is likely to be a source of continued suffering -- the verdict and judgment appealed from are amended by increasing the amount thereby awarded from $ 2,500 to $ 6,000.

Story & Pugh, of Crowley (Philip S. Hough, of Vidalia, of counsel), for appellant.

Taylor & Gremillion, of Crowley, for appellee.

Statement of the Case.

OPINION

MONROE, J.

Defendant prosecutes this appeal from a judgment condemning it to pay plaintiff $ 2,500, as damages for personal injuries received by him. Plaintiff has answered the appeal, praying for an increase in the award. Plaintiff, a negro boy, past 17 years of age, was employed by defendant to work about its mill; the principal work to which he was assigned being to assist in the unloading of shelled corn from box cars (standing upon a track which runs parallel with the south side of the mill) into a conveyor, consisting of a trough, 16X16 inches covered with movable planks, and in which was a piece of metal, shaped like an endless, 12-inch augur, revolving rapidly and carrying the grain along; the trough being fastened to the south wall of the mill and extending almost its entire length, of 80 feet, at an elevation of, say, 2 feet from the ground, and passing a few inches below the sills of the doors, opening through the wall, and the south side of the trough being 28 inches from the north side of the cars, as they stood on the track. As the corn was to be unloaded into the conveyor, and was not to pass through the mill doors, the cars were not placed on the track with reference to the doors, and the planks with which the trough was covered were left loose in order that the corn might be conducted by means of a chute, or chutes, from a car, or from a number of cars, at the same time, placed at any point, or points, along the track. A full load for a car was about 1,000 bushels of shelled corn, and, in addition to doors, midway between the ends and sliding to and fro against the two outer sides, the car was provided with bulkheads, consisting of planks, nailed horizontally, upon the inner sides, across the openings, otherwise closed by the sliding doors. The method of establishing the connection necessary to transfer the corn from the car to the conveyor was to open the conveyor trough by sliding one of the planks by which it was covered over its neighbor, in one direction or the other, in order to let in the end of the chute; to slide back the door of the car, standing opposite, thus affording access to the bulkhead; to saw a hole in the bulkhead, next to floor of the car; and then to place the chute in position, from the hole in the bulkhead to the conveyor trough, when, as the trough was lower than the hole, the corn, being shoveled into the chute at one end, was carried to the other end and into the trough, by gravitation. And the business of the boy, and of a man who was engaged upon the same job, was to shovel the corn, and keep up the supply in the chute until the car was emptied. The particular car, in which the boy had been working on the day of the accident, was so placed on the track that the door was not opposite to either of the doors of the mill (of which there were two, or, possibly, three, on that side), but was about its own width, or, say, 3 or 4 feet, to the eastward of one of them, so that, in order to reach his place of business by the most convenient route and the route commonly used, under such circumstances, it was necessary for the boy to pass out through the mill door and walk eastward, on the top of the conveyor trough, until he...