Williams v. United States Incandescent Lamp Co.

• Decision Date: 08 April 1913
• Parties: WILLIAMS v. UNITED STATES INCANDESCENT LAMP CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

157 S.W. 130

WILLIAMS v. UNITED STATES INCANDESCENT LAMP CO.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

April 8, 1913.

Rehearing Denied June 3, 1913.

1. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 286) — INJURIES TO SERVANT — NEGLIGENCE — QUESTION FOR JURY.

In an action for injuries to a servant in endeavoring to repair a stovepipe which had fallen in defendant's factory, in order to prevent injury to defendant's employés and a possible fire in the factory, evidence held to require submission of the question of defendant's negligence to the jury.

2. NEGLIGENCE (§ 56) — PROXIMATE CAUSE — PLACING THIRD PERSON IN PERIL.

Where a party attempts to prevent an injury to persons which would naturally result from the negligent act of defendant, and is injured, the defendant's negligent act, which necessitated the doing of the act by the injured person, will be considered as the proximate cause of the injury.

3. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 291) — REQUEST TO CHARGE — MISLEADING INSTRUCTIONS.

A request to charge that an employer is not an insurer of the employés, and if the jury found that if plaintiff's injuries resulted from an accident for which no one was to blame, or were received without any negligence on defendant's part, or were caused by plaintiff's own carelessness, the verdict should be for defendant, was confusing and apt to mislead.

4. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 246) — INJURIES TO SERVANT — INSTRUCTIONS — APPREHENSION OF DANGER.

Where plaintiff, a charwoman, was seriously injured while attempting to replace a negligently constructed stovepipe in defendant's factory, an instruction that if the jury believed it was no part of defendant's duty to replace

the pipe she could not recover was properly refused, as it did not take any notice of plaintiff's ground of recovery, in that she apprehended imminent danger of injury to or death of other employés, unless she acted promptly.

5. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 296) — INJURIES TO SERVANT — CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE — INSTRUCTIONS.

An instruction on contributory negligence of an injured servant was properly refused, where the facts which would constitute negligence on the servant's part were not specified.

6. TRIAL (§ 251) — INSTRUCTIONS — INJURIES TO SERVANT — CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE — PLEADING.

Where, in an action for injuries to a servant, contributory negligence was not pleaded, and plaintiff's own evidence did not show that she was negligent, it was not an issue in the case.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; J. Hugo Grimm, Judge.

Action by Ellen Williams against the United States Incandescent Lamp Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

A. & J. F. Lee, of St. Louis, for appellant. Morrow & Kelley, of St. Louis, for respondent.

REYNOLDS, P. J.

This is an action by the plaintiff to recover damages for injuries sustained by her while in the employ of the defendant. It appears that plaintiff was a scrub woman in the offices of the defendant company, her employment being to clean and take care of defendant's offices. There was a coal stove in this office to which ordinary stovepipe was attached, running up a couple of lengths and then with an elbow and a length or more of pipe, running into the pipe hole in the wall or chimney of the office. On the day of the accident and a short time before it happened, some of the young women in the office complained of lack of heat, there being no fire in the stove, and asked plaintiff to make a fire. Not finding any coal she made a fire with kindling and blocks of wood, and left the room. A short time afterwards she heard some one in this room screaming and went into it. She testified that she found a part of this pipe lying on the floor. She also testifies that she had noticed that the pipe was not securely in place; that on a former occasion it had fallen to the floor, and that she had called the attention of the manager of defendant to this and to the fact that the pipe as set up was liable to fall, but that nothing had been done toward supporting the pipe. When she entered the room, as before stated, plaintiff, according to her testimony, saw sparks and flames escaping from that part of the stovepipe still in place. She picked up the fallen joints and attempted to put them in place. The pipe was hot, "red hot," says plaintiff, and she protected her hands against the heat by using a burlap apron which she was wearing. To put the pipe in place she climbed up on a chair and apparently rested on that and on the stove. While she was in this position and endeavoring to push the pipe together, she fell over backwards, striking against a desk, and sustained the injuries of which she complains. Without describing those injuries, it is sufficient to say that according to her testimony and that of a physician who attended her, they are very serious and are permanent, such as to greatly diminish the earning capacity of plaintiff. Plaintiff testified that the room in which this stove was located was filled with loose excelsior and packing of different kinds; that there were valuable materials, which she had been told were worth their weight in gold, used by the defendant company in the manufacture of its lamps, stored there, and that this office was occupied by the manager and three young women stenographers, while on the floor immediately above there were some thirty young women operatives and several other employés in other parts of the building at the time; that the only mode of egress from the building for those on the upper floors was down a narrow stairway, which passed by the door of this office, and that she was afraid that the sparks and flames going up from the disconnected stovepipe would set fire to the material in the room in which was the stove, and if not checked would go through the ceiling, set fire to the building and endanger the lives of the employés and the property of her employer. She testified that her employment was to look after anything that had to be done in connection with keeping up the fire in this stove and generally discharge such duties as a charwoman is supposed to do in the course of her employment.

At the conclusion of plaintiff's evidence defendant offered a demurrer which was overruled. It then introduced its own evidence. It may be said of this that it flatly contradicted a great many of the most material statements of plaintiff; for instance, defendant's witnesses testified very positively that the pipe had not fallen down at all but that one joint had only separated two or three inches from another joint or from the elbow; that plaintiff had been cautioned not to attempt to replace it and told that there were other people around whose duty it was to do that and who had been summoned but that she persisted in her attempt to replace the pipe.

At the conclusion of the evidence defendant again renewed its demurrer which was overruled. The jury, after having been instructed by the court, returned a verdict in favor of pl...