White v. William H. Perry Co.
| Decision Date | 03 January 1906 |
| Citation | 76 N.E. 512,190 Mass. 99 |
| Parties | WHITE v. WILLIAM H. PERRY CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
C. P. Sampson, for plaintiff.
Dickson & Knowles, for defendant.
This is an action of tort for personal injuries. There was a verdict for the plaintiff, and the case is here on exceptions by the defendant to the refusal of the court to rule, as requested that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover.
The plaintiff was assisting in loading a car with rails, and was standing on a platform made of sleepers, and was in the act of pushing a rail over the side of the car, when in consequence, as he contended, of the slipping of one of the sleepers, his foot went down, and the rail crushed his wrist against the side of the car, and broke it. The platform was made of four sleepers, weighing about 180 pounds each. Two were laid on the ground at right angles with the track, and two others parallel with the track, placed upon them side by side, and close to the track end of the lower ties. The platform was made so as to enable the man to reach the top of the sides of the car, and was temporary in its nature. It was constructed under the direction of one McIntosh, who, the jury could have found, was acting as the defendant's superintendent or foreman, and the sleepers were not spiked together, because, as he testified, 'they were heavy, and it did not seem necessary so to do.' There was contradictory testimony on the question whether the plaintiff assisted in putting the sleepers in position; McIntosh testifying that he did, and the plaintiff testifying that he had nothing to do with it, did not see any of the operation of constructing it, and heard no orders given, and did not know that the top sleepers were not spiked down, and supposed, down to the time of the accident, that they were all secure. We think that the ruling was right and that the exceptions must be overruled.
It was competent for the jury to find that the platform, though temporary in its nature, was an appliance provided by the defendant, through its superintendent, for the use of the men who were engaged in loading the cars with rails. And the question whether he exercised due care in making it as he did, or whether it should have been fastened together, was for the jury. Millard v. West End St Ry., 173 Mass. 512, 53 N.E. 900; Murphy v. N. Y., New Haven & Hartford R. R., 187 Mass. 18,...
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