Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/200/200mass182.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 10:19:04+00:00

Document:
Negligence, Employer's liability. Practice, Civil, Conduct of trial. Witness, Cross-examination.
If the proprietor of an ice run orders a teamster who has been driving a pair of horses to change places with a man who is working on the run, and the change is made, or if without a direct order of the proprietor the change is made with the cognizance and approval of the proprietor's superintendent who has full authority to represent the proprietor in the matter, the proprietor is liable to the teamster who left his horses to work on the ice run if while so working he is injured by reason of the negligence of the proprietor in furnishing an unsafe chain as part of the machinery of the run.
A jury are not bound to believe testimony because it is uncontradicted.
If a witness on his cross-examination gives an answer which is not strictly responsive to the question, but which is germane to the subject of the inquiry and is material and competent evidence, it is within the discretion of the presiding judge to refuse to strike out the answer as non-responsive.
TORT for personal injuries received by the plaintiff on February 1, 1904, while working on an ice run of the defendant. Writ dated May 21, 1904.
or two o'clock in the afternoon. The ice house was on the same road with the defendant's house and only a few feet away from the defendant's barn.
The plaintiff testified that he was a teamster in the employ of one Horace Knight, who lived in the neighborhood about half a mile away from the place of the accident ; that on Sunday, January 31, 1904, one Joran came to Knight's house; that Joran wanted to know where Knight was, and he was not there, and Joran said that he wanted a pair of horses and a man to go to work at the ice house; that Knight was absent at the time ; that the plaintiff hitched up the pair of horses and drove them to the ice house some time about the middle of the day, Sunday, January 31, 1904; that he did not see the defendant there at the time he arrived; that the ice was being harvested at the time he got there, and was being put into the ice house ; that he hitched the horses to the rope ; that he drove these horses for about two hours, and that Frank Knight, a son of Horace Knight, then was working on the right walk opposite the ice run ; that one Dennet was working on the left walk opposite the ice run, and that one Monast was driving the other pair of horses, lifting the ice which Dennett was guiding up the run. Against the objection of the defendant, the plaintiff testified that Frank Knight told him that the defendant said, "if the horses wasn't going right to suit him, for to change work."
The plaintiff further testified : "Mr. Knight, Jr., told me that Mr. Coupe said if the horses wasn't going right to suit him, for to change work, and he told me that, and I did. . . . I changed for a little while that Sunday afternoon."
the accident the plaintiff was about twenty-one feet up from the water.
"I was braced back this way (illustrating), to hold the ice down, and when the chain broke this handle here turned like that (illustrating) and threw me off my balance. I went over and my foot went through the run."
The following also is taken from the plaintiff's testimony : "Q. Now, Sunday, how much work did you do on the grap? How long? A. Well, not but a very little while; probably not over an hour I shouldn't judge. - Q. About an hour. What time of the day was that, Sunday? A. Well, I should judge in the middle of the afternoon ; probably two to three o'clock. - Q. And after that you went back to the horses? A. Yes, sir. - Q. They were not behaving very well, was that it? A. The horses hadn't been doing much of anything that winter and the noise from the ice kind of scairt them. - Q. And all the morning you were driving the horses, Monday ? A. Yes, sir. - Q. And how came you to go on at one o'clock, Monday ? How came you to go on the run and work with the grapple ? A. The horses - I thought if anybody else could use the horses better than I could, and get along any better, let them do it. As Mr. Coupe told Mr. Knight, Jr., to change around with me, I did. - Q. Who told you to go on at one o'clock, on to the run? A. Who told me to ? - Q. Yes. A. Mr. Knight, Jr. - Q. And following those orders you went on the run and stayed an hour before you were hurt? A. Yes, sir. It might have been a little after one ; I can't say just to the minute to the time of day it was. - Q. You didn't know that there was anything the matter with this chain before you were hurt ? A. No, sir, not until afterwards. I heard afterwards that it had broke before."
Other evidence is described in the opinion.
At the conclusion of all the evidence the defendant moved to strike from the plaintiff's testimony that part of it in which the plaintiff stated that Mr. Knight, Jr., told him that the defendant said "if the horses were not going right to suit him, for to change work, and he told him that." The judge refused to strike it out.
recover. The judge refused so to rule, and submitted the case to the jury, who returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $675. The defendant alleged exceptions.
F. S. Hall, for the defendant.
C. R. Cummings, (P. B. Brady with him,) for the plaintiff.
SHELDON, J. The defendant's contention as presented to us is that a verdict should have been ordered in his favor for the reasons, first, that the plaintiff was not employed or authorized to do the work which he was doing at the time that he was hurt, and second, because the business in which the plaintiff was employed was the business not of the defendant, but of one Angell, and that both the defendant and the plaintiff and all other men employed in the business were merely salaried employees of Angell. If either of these contentions was established, the action could not be maintained. But a verdict could not be ordered for the defendant upon either ground if there was any evidence upon which the jury could find that the defendant's contention was not made out.
ice run before the accident and on that occasion, and expressed no dissatisfaction. Indeed, Joran himself so testified. He added that the change, meaning, we suppose, such a change as was made between Knight and the plaintiff, was made quite often, and also that the change was perfectly satisfactory to him, and that when Knight left his position on the run and came down to drive the horses, it was perfectly proper for the plaintiff to take hold of the grapple, and that it was perfectly agreeable to him, Joran, that the plaintiff should do so. It is plain that the jury had a right to find that what the plaintiff did was done, if not in accordance with a direction given by the defendant, yet with the cognizance and approval of the defendant's superintendent, who had as to this matter full authority to represent the defendant himself. Saures v. Stevens Manuf. Co. 196 Mass. 543, 548. Byrne v. Learnard, 191 Mass. 269, 275. Manning v. Excelsior Laundry Co. 189 Mass. 231, 233.
2. The defendant's second contention rests upon his own testimony that in 1897 he had transferred to Angell all his property for the benefit of his creditors, that this assignment was still in full force and effect, that it covered all the property used in this ice business and the business itself, and that the defendant was merely in the employ of Angell upon a salary. But the jury were not bound to believe this testimony, even though it was uncontradicted. Lindenbaum v. New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad, 197 Mass. 314. Bearse v. Mabie, 198 Mass. 451, 456. Stouffer v. Curtis, 198 Mass. 560, 562. And apart from this, from the defendant's own testimony upon cross-examination, it well might be found that he was in independent charge of this business, and was himself the employer of all the people who were engaged in it. In Hanlon v. Thompson, 167 Mass. 190, relied on by the defendant, the question who was the employer of the plaintiff was submitted to the jury.
the evidence of the witness's approval of the plaintiff's conduct. In view of the testimony which the defendant had given as to this witness's authority and power of control, this was material evidence, and the judge was not bound to strike it out.
4. It has not been contended that there was not sufficient evidence to warrant findings that the plaintiff, though in the general employment of the elder Knight, was at the time of the accident in the service of the defendant, if the defendant was running the ice business ; that the injury was due to negligence of the defendant in furnishing an unsafe chain ; and that the plaintiff was himself in the exercise of due care, and had not assumed the risk of the accident by which he was injured. The exception to the refusal of the judge to strike out the plaintiff's evidence as to what the younger Knight told him about the defendant's direction to change work has not been argued, and we treat it as waived.

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