Case ID: ill-app_204/html/0140-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Dibell", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Daniel L. Dougherty, Appellee, v. Spring Valley Coal Company, Appellant.
    Gen. No. 6,350.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Appeal from the City Court of Spring Valley; the Hon. W. H. Hawthorne, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the October term, 1916.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Opinion filed February 10, 1917.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action by Daniel L. Dougherty, plaintiff, against Spring Valley Coal Company, defendant, to recover damages for personal injuries sustained in defendant’s coal mine. From a judgment for plaintiff for $950, defendant appeals.
    
      Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Mines and minerals, § 80
      
      —what degree of care must he exercised by mine owner in providing safe place to work. A mine employer is not an insurer that the place where he sets his men to work shall he absolutely safe, but he is only bound to exercise reasonable care that such place is reasonably safe.
    2. Mines and minerals, § 80*—when employee may not recover for injuries due to alleged failure to provide safe place to work. Where it was the duty of a miner employed in a mine to “brush” loose coal and rock from the roof of the room wherein he was placed to work, held that he could not recover from his employer for injuries sustained by a fall of coal or rock from the roof while so employed, under a declaration charging a duty upon the employer to provide a reasonably safe place and condition in which to work.
    3. Mines and minerals, § 176*—when evidence insufficient to show that danger mark is necessary on roof of entry of mine. Evidence held insufficient to sustain a finding that the appearance of the roof of the main entry of defendant’s coal mine was such as to require under the Mining Act a danger mark there and an entry to that effect on its record, or to sustain a finding that the defendant had not used reasonable care to make that place reasonably safe for its employees, in an action to recover damages for injuries sustained by the plaintiff by rocks falling from the roof of the entry upon him.
    4. Trial, § 133*—when remarks of counsel are prejudicially erroneous. Sneering questions and remarks by counsel for the plaintiff in a personal injury action as to the plaintiff being a poor person and comparing him with John D. Rockefeller, and sneering remarks as to defendant’s counsel, held improper and prejudicial.
    McDougall, Chapman & Bayne, for appellant; Mastin & Sherlock, of counsel.
    G. F. Wagner, for appellee.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Justice Dibell

delivered the opinion of the court.