Wright v. Hammond Packing Co.

• Decision Date: 03 December 1917
• Docket Number: No. 12149.,12149.
• Citation: 199 S.W. 754
• Parties: WRIGHT v. HAMMOND PACKING CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

199 S.W. 754

WRIGHT v. HAMMOND PACKING CO.

No. 12149.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

December 3, 1917.

Rehearing Denied December 31, 1917.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Buchanan County; Thomas B. Allen, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by George W. Wright against the Hammond Packing Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

William E. Stringfellow, of St. Joseph, Mo., for appellant. W. B. Norris, J. D. Robinson, and Barney E. Reilly, all of St. Joseph, for respondent.

ELLISON, P. J.

Plaintiff began this action the 19th of April, 1912, to recover damages for personal injuries he alleged were caused by negligence of the defendant, his employer. The charge of negligence as set out in an amended petition was that defendant, the proprietor of an extensive meat-packing plant in St. Joseph, knowingly employed incompetent servants, and kept the room where plaintiff worked insufficiently lighted. The answer was a general denial and pleas of assumed risk and contributory negligence. Plaintiff obtained judgment for $5,000. The only cause submitted to the jury was the alleged negligence in failing to provide plaintiff a sufficiently lighted place to work. Defendant insists that its request for a peremptory instruction should not have been denied, and claims the evidence shows conclusively that the room was adequately lighted, that, if it was not, the lack of sufficient light was not the proximate cause of the injury, and that, in any possible view of the evidence, the most that may be said in favor of the position of plaintiff is that he has merely shown that the defect in question was one of two or more equally probable causes of the injury for only one of which defendant would be liable.

The injury occurred early in the afternoon of April 22, 1910, in a room known as the inedible tank room, which was about 90 feet long, north and south, and 30 feet wide. In a line along the west side of the room the tops of eight large tanks projected above the floor about 18 inches. These tanks were about 30 feet deep, and were used as receptacles and boilers for inedible parts of slaughtered animals which were to be converted into fertilizer and other inedible products. The cooking was done by steam, and at times the tank room was filled with steam and fog. The top of each tank was oval, with an opening in the center 22 by 32 inches. There was nothing in the room in addition to the tanks except some posts, a scale at the northeast corner, and a truck at the southwest corner. There was a doorway at the middle of the south end through which the material dumped into the tanks was trucked from an adjoining room. There were two windows of fire-glass, 2×5 feet in dimensions, at the north end, and the room received natural light only through these windows and the doorway when it was open. Provision had been made for 20 electric lights to provide sufficient illumination, but only 2 of these had been in service for some time, one over the scale and one at the other end of the room over the truck.

Plaintiff was in charge of the room as inspector of the material trucked in for deposit in the tanks. It was his duty to inspect each truck load and to designate to the truckmen the tank into which the load should be dumped. The truckmen were Roumanians who could not speak English, and were described by plaintiff as very ignorant, stupid, and obstinate. On the occasion in question a laborer brought a can of material into the room which, under the direction of plaintiff, he proceeded to dump into one of the middle tanks, but in the process he dropped the can into the tank. Plaintiff let a droplight down into the tank and fished for the can with a long pole which had a hook at the end. He was bending over the hole and was reaching for the can when a noise from behind caused him to straighten up and look around. A loaded truck pushed by the two Roumanians, headed for the tank, was so close that, seeing he was in danger of being struck and seriously injured by it, plaintiff vainly tried to jump out of the way, but the truck, which was being rapidly run, struck his leg and inflicted the injuries of which he complains.

The chief contest between the parties at the trial was over the question whether defendant negligently allowed and permitted the large room in which plaintiff worked to become so dark as to render it unsafe, and whether such unsafe condition was the proximate cause of plaintiff's injury. That the room was dark — too dark to see except when in immediate contact — there was abundant evidence. And so we think there was ample evidence tending to show that such dark condition was the proximate cause of the injury to plaintiff. The testimony showing these elements of defendant's liability, we think, so fully justified the verdict that there is no reasonable ground upon which to ask us to interfere with the judgment.

The suggestions urged by defendant, when reduced down, disclose a disposition to shut out of consideration the advantage the plaintiff has by having obtained a verdict. It is said that the truckmen violated orders and the...