Woods v. Chicago, B.&Q.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 07 February 1923
• Docket Number: No. 14419.,14419.
• Citation: 137 N.E. 806,306 Ill. 217
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: WOODS v. CHICAGO, B. & Q. R. CO.

306 Ill. 217

137 N.E. 806

WOODS

v.CHICAGO, B. & Q. R. CO.

No. 14419.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 19, 1922.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 7, 1923.

Action by Joseph Woods against the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. Judgment for plaintiff was affirmed by the Appellate Court (222 Ill. App. 134), and, on certificate of importance, defendant appeals.

Reversed and remanded.

Stone, J., dissenting.

Appeal from Second Branch Appellate Court, First District, on Appeal from Superior Court, Cook County; Joseph Sabath, Judge.

J. A. Connell and Russell B. James, both of Chicago (R. Bruce Scott, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.

Finn & Miller, of Chicago, for appellee.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

The appellee, Joseph Woods, recovered a judgment for $16,700 in an action on the case in the superior court of Cook county against the appellant, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, brought to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been received while working as a switchman for appellant at its Morton Park yards, near Chicago, on the night of December 10, 1917. The Appellate Court for the First District affirmed the judgment, and granted a certificate of importance and an appeal to this court.

The original declaration contained five counts in substance the same, all based on the federal Employers' Liability Act (U. S. Comp. St. §§ 8657-8665), which makes every common carrier engaged in interstate commerce liable in damages for injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency due to its negligence in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, tracks, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment. The negligence alleged in each count was in permitting a coupling on one of the cars in use to be and remain in a dangerous and defective condition, old, rusty, worn out, weak, and insufficient, so that it was liable at all times to break and give way, and injure persons working at and about the car. It was averred that by reason of such negligence the coupling broke and gave way, and a large and heavy metal part fell from it, and flew upon and against the plaintiff, injuring him. The fourth count also included an averment of the existence of the Safety Appliance Act (U. S. Comp. St. § 8605 et seq.). To the declaration a plea of the general issue was filed, and afterward, by leave, an additional count was filed, to which the plea of the general issue before filed was ordered to stand as a plea. The additional count set out the Safety Appliance Act, which declares it to be unlawful for a common carrier to haul or permit to be hauled or used on its line any car used in moving interstate traffic, not equipped with couplers coupling automatically by impact, and which can be uncoupled without the necessity of men going between the cars. It was charged that the defendant, in violation of that statute, failed to equip one of its cars with couplers coupling automatically by impact, but, on the contrary, allowed a certain coupler on one of its cars to be and remain in a dangerous, weak, old, worn, rusty, defective, and insufficient condition, and by reason of the violation of the statute the coupling and jaws and metal parts broke and gave way, There were the same averments as to the part of the coupling being thrown against the plaintiff, causing his injury.

The evidence for the plaintiff was to the following effect: He was working as a switchman in the yards of the defendant near Morton Park on December 10, 1917. The switching crew consisted of Engineer Korta, Fireman Le Brun, Foreman Miller, Switchman Stewart, and the plaintiff. The tracks run east and west, and are numbered from the south to the north. At about 7 o'clock in the evening the engine to which the crew belonged backed in on track No. 3 at the east end to couple up a string of 19 or 20 cars standing on that track, for the purpose of making up a train. The switchmen got off from the engine between tracks 2 and 3, and the plaintiff remained near the engine, while Miller and Stewart went back along the string of cars to see to couplings farther back. The plaintiff coupled the engine to the first car, and walked back 2 or 3 cars, where he found 2 cars standing still about 5 or 6 feet apart. He went in between the [306 Ill. 220]2 cars and opened the knuckles of the coupling, pulled the drawbars open, so they would line up to make the coupling, and then stepped out from between the cars, and, standing between tracks 2 and 3, gave the engineer a comeback signal. The engineer backed up, and the plaintiff testified that he saw the 2 cars coupled up and that the coupling was made very easily. Miller and Stewart, who had gone on along the string of cars, opened up the knuckles of various couplings and signaled for the engineer to back up to couple the cars. Their signals were repeated to the engineer by the plaintiff, and the engineer backed up, and the cars were coupled in that way, everything working all right. When the entire train was coupled up, the switchmen at the rear end gave a go-ahead signal, the plaintiff repeated it to the engineer and the train started. After the train started up slowly, a piece of what the witnesses called the drawbar of the coupling, or the guard arm, broke off and flew out a distance of 6 feet, striking the plaintiff on the back and knocking him down, causing the injury for which he brought suit. The plaintiff testified that when he made the coupling he observed that the couplings were worn from use, and the one that subsequently broke was worn more than the other. There was evidence for the plaintiff tending to prove that the drawbar or guard arm broke on account of some defect in it, or on account of its worn condition, and there was evidence for the defendant to the contrary.

The court gave, at...