Yazoo & M.V.R. Co. v. Downs

• Decision Date: 05 April 1915
• Docket Number: 16871
• Citation: 67 So. 962,109 Miss. 140
• Parties: YAZOO & M.V.R. CO. v. DOWNS
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

67 So. 962

109 Miss. 140

YAZOO & M.V.R. CO. v. DOWNS

No. 16871

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 5, 1915

APPEAL from the circuit court of Holmes county. HON. MONROE MCCLURG Judge.

Suit by J. T. Downs against the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed.

Mayes &amp Mayes, for appellant.

P. P Lindholm, for appellee.

OPINION

REED, J.

Appellee obtained a judgment against appellant for five hundred dollars for damages from injury to a finger, which he alleged was caused by appellant's negligence. He was in the employ of appellant as one of a section gang. At the time of the injury the gang was at work on one of the appellant's main line tracks, substituting new rails for old ones. The new rails had been distributed along the right of way. Appellee, with other laborers, was engaged in pulling out spikes, holding the old rails to the cross-ties, by the use of a clawbar, or iron lever used to pull spikes, when one of the spikes gave way suddenly, perhaps by reason of its head snapping off, and he fell to the ground with the bar in his hand, mashing his finger between the bar and one of the new rails.

Appellee claimed liability on the part of appellant because: (1) He was not furnished a reasonably safe place to work; and (2) he should have been warned and instructed as to the alleged perils of his position. He further claimed that he did not receive the medical attention to which he was entitled as a member of the hospital department of appellant company, and that there was a failure to get him to a proper place of treatment in a reasonable time.

We do not see that any of these contentions by appellee are supported by the proof. The new rails strewn beside the track along the right of way, ready for use in replacing the old ones, did not render the roadbed an unsafe place for the work which was being done by appellee. The track and roadbed were reasonably safe places in which appellee and his fellow laborers could do their work in replacing new rails for old ones, which included the pulling of spikes from the old rails.

It was not incumbent upon the appellant to give any warning and instruction to appellee regarding any dangers or perils connected with the work in which he was engaged. Such dangers were ordinary hazards, patent to the average workman, or such as...