Wilson v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co.
| Decision Date | 05 March 1926 |
| Docket Number | 11930. |
| Parties | WILSON v. ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Sumter County Court; T. S. Sease, Judge.
Action by Wm. Thomas Wilson, by Albert Wilson, his guardian ad litem, against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Reynolds & Reynolds, of Sumter, and Douglas McKay, of Columbia, for appellant.
L. D Jennings, of Sumter, for respondent.
Action for damages on account of personal injury sustained by the plaintiff, an employee of the defendant, while engaged in clearing a wreck. The plaintiff had a verdict of $1,500, and the defendant has appealed, alleging error solely in the refusal of the circuit judge to direct a verdict in its favor.
In disposing of such a motion the construction of the evidence most favorable to the plaintiff or party opposed to the motion must be adopted. In this view of the case, the circumstances attending the injury must be thus stated: The plaintiff was a section hand working under a foreman named Deal. An engine had jumped the track. The wheels on one side remaining on the rail, and those on the other side pressing against what is called the "web" of the rail, the thin part or stem of the T rail between the base and the ball part upon which the wheels run. This pressure outward, produced a bow of the rail and a consequent spring in it, attached as it was at both ends, to the adjoining rails by means of angle bars, bolted at the junction points. The plaintiff was assisting the foreman in freeing the rail. The bolts had been withdrawn from the angle bars leaving them in position. The plaintiff was sent by the foreman for a cold chisel to cut the "bond wire," a wire connected with the electric signal system, which connected the end of one rail with that of the next one, but which had nothing to do with holding the rails in place. The foreman took the cold chisel from the plaintiff, and, in cutting it loose, released the outward pressure against the rail, the end of which catapulted the angle bar upward striking the plaintiff, who was standing just behind the foreman, on the head, inflicting the injury of which he complained.
The master is chargeable with the duty of exercising reasonable care in furnishing the servant with a safe place in which to work; he is not a guarantor of such safety. Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Horton, ...
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... ... v. Railroad, 87 ... S.C. 178, 69 S.E. 156, and Moore v. Atlantic" Coast Line ... Railroad, 137 S.C. 319, 135 S.E. 473 ... \xC2" ... the case to the jury." ... ... Also Wilson" v. Atlantic Coast Line Railway, 134 S.C ... 31, 131 S.E. 777 ... \xC2" ... ...
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Bell v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co.
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Driggers v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co.
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