Case ID: walker_4/html/0451-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

GARRETT vs. HILLSIDE COAL & IRON COMPANY.
    Declarations of an agent made two days after the accident, are inadmissible to charge the principal with negligence.
    The failure to have an engineer who might have stopped the monkey rolls in time to 'have saved the life of an employee who fell between the rolls does not render the employer liable.
    Error of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County. No. 171, January Term, 1883.
    This was an action of tresspass upon the case brought by Patrick Garrett to recover damages Lr the death of his son, Thomas Garrett, who was crushed to death by the monkey rollers at defendant’s Spring Brook Colliery. Thomas Garrett, aged 11 years 5 months, was employed to pick slate from the schute leading to the monkey rollers. Two other boys worked between Garrett and the rollers. There was no testimony to show how Garrett got into the rollers. There was ■evidence to show that no engineer was stationed at the engine which ran the monkey rollers though there was an engineer at the regular engine, which was not more than 90 feet away. This was offered to show that defendant was negligent in not having an engineer there, whereby the rollers might have been stopped and Garrett’s life saved. Evidence that Samuel Hines, defendant’s General Superintendent, admitted that no engineer was employed at the engine for the monkey rolls in a conversation held two days after the accident, was rejected. Defendant offered no evidence, and the Court left the question of negligence to the jury.
    Verdict for defendant. Garrett then took this writ of error.
    
      D. W. Connolly and I. H. Burns, Esqs., for plaintiff in error,
    cited Union R. R. and Trans. Co. vs. Riegel, 73 Pa., 72; and Chapman vs. Erie Ry. Co., 55 N. Y., 570 — 584; as to the error of rejecting the conversation with Hines. The burden cf proving want of care on the part of Garrett was upon the defendants; Beatty vs. Gilmore, 16 Pa., 463; Bush vs. Johnston, 23 Pa., 209; Penna. R. R. Co. vs. Weber, 76 Pa., 168,
    
      
      Messrs. E. P. and J. V. Darling and Willard & Warren, contra,
    
    argued that the admissibility of the conversation with Hines, was decided in Huntingdon R. R. Co. vs. Decker, 82 Pa., 119, and McDermott vs. Hannibal U. R. R. Co., 2 Eng. and Am. R. R. Cases, 85. The failure to have an engineer at the monkey rollers was only an increased danger, and was-not the proximate cause of Garrett’s death, Goshorn vs. Smith, 92 Pa., 435.
   The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Common Pleas on March 5th, 1883, in the following opinion :

Per Curiam.

This record discloses no error of which the plaintiff has any cause to complain. The declarations of an agent made two-days after the unfortunate accident occurred, were not admit - sible to charge his principal with negligence; Huntingdon ar.d Broad Top Railroad Co. vs. Decker, 82 Pa., 119. Upon a careful examination of the whole evidence we cannot find any sufficient to submit to the jury, showing negligence on the-part of the defendant. As, therefore, the case should not have-been sent to the jury, the plaintiff is not injured by answers, to the points, nor by the charge.

Judgment affirmed.