Wright v. Rawson

• Decision Date: 28 October 1879
• Citation: 52 Iowa 329,3 N.W. 106
• Parties: TEXANNER WRIGHT, ADMINISTRATRIX, ETC., APPELLANT, v. A. Y. RAWSON, APPELLEE.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

52 Iowa 329

3 N.W. 106

TEXANNER WRIGHT, ADMINISTRATRIX, ETC., APPELLANT,

v.A. Y. RAWSON, APPELLEE.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed October 28, 1879.

Appeal from Polk circuit court.

Action to recover for injuries caused by the negligence of defendant, which resulted in the death of plaintiff's intestate. A demurrer to the petition was sustained, and judgment rendered thereon for defendant. Plaintiff appeals.B. A. Williams and Smith & Baylies, for appellant.

Barcroft, Given & McCaughan, for appellee.

BECK, C. J.

The petition alleges that defendant is the owner of a coal mine, and is engaged in mining coal therein, and that plaintiff's intestate was employed as a miner by defendant. The petition then proceeds to set out the cause of action in the following words:

“The defendant and his superintendent knew that it was the custom of miners in said mine, and had been the custom from the time said mine was opened, when not actively engaged in work, to visit each other in their respective rooms; that, with full knowledge of such custom, defendant acquiesced in it, and thereby invited and permitted them so to do; that prior to said fifteenth of October, 1877, there was a room in said mine that had been, at one time, used by defendant for mining coal, but said room had been unused for about six months prior to said fifteenth of October, 1877, and, during the time of such non-use, the supports to the roof of said room had become decayed and weakened, and the rock, slate and dirt composing the roof had become weakened and loosened, so that the same was defective and dangerous, and was well known to be defective and dangerous by defendant and his superintendent, on said fifteenth of October, 1873; that the defective and dangerous condition of said room was entirely unknown to said Samuel Wright; that on said fifteenth of October, and while said room and roof were in the dangerous and unsafe condition aforesaid, the defendant, by his superintendent, carelessly and negligently caused two of defendant's employes to go to work in said room digging coal, and thereby caused said Samuel Wright and other employes to believe that the said room, and the roof thereof, were safe and not dangerous to be used and occupied, and thereby invited and permitted the said Wright, and other employes in said mine, to go into said room where two of defendant's employes were at work as aforesaid, in accordance with their usual and known custom, and without warning the said Wright in any manner that the said room was dangerous to be occupied or entered; that on said fifteenth of October said Samuel Wright was at work for said defendant as a miner, in a room in said mine, near to the said defective...