Case Name: UNDERWOOD v. GULF REFINING CO. OF LOUISIANA
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1911-01-16
Citations: 128 La. 968
Docket Number: No. 18,048
Parties: UNDERWOOD v. GULF REFINING CO. OF LOUISIANA.
Judges: SOMMBRVILLE, J., takes no part herein. See dissenting opinion of PROVOSTX, J., 55 South. 653.
Reporter: Louisiana Reports
Volume: 128
Pages: 967–1003

Head Matter:
(55 South. 641.)
No. 18,048.
UNDERWOOD v. GULF REFINING CO. OF LOUISIANA.
(Jan. 16, 1911.
On Rehearing, April 24, 1911.)
(Syllabus by the Court.)
1.Master and Servant (§§ 121, 124*) — Injuries to Servant — Safe Place to Work-Duty of Master.
It is negligence, so gross as to border upon criminality, for an oil company, engaged in boring a well, to expose its employes to the danger of sudden death from the breaking of the chains used in conveying the motive power from the engine to the drill, or rotary, when such danger can be guarded against, in part, by proper inspection of the chains and, otherwise, by boarding up the side of the derrick upon the floor where the machinery is operated.
[Ed. Note. — Por other cases, see Master and Servant, Cent. Dig. §§ 229, 235; Dec. Dig. §§ 121, 124.*]
2.Master and Servant (§ 248*) — Injuries to Servant — Contributory Negligence.
Whilst a particular spot, or line, upon the floor of a derrick, where boring for oil or gas is going on, may be regarded as so dangerous, from the possible breaking of a chain, that no one, expecting to remain upon the floor for any length of time, would deliberately place himself there, yet, if the danger be not obvious, or, apparently, imminent, and there is no such choice between it and any other place on the floor as would prevent an employs, having business with the driller, from placing himself there, for a moment, for the transaction of such business, the inadvertence of the employs, in so placing_ himself, will not relieve the employer of liability for damages for injury done to him, by the breaking of a chain, when it appears that the danger might have been guarded against by a simple and inexpensive expedient. Inadvertence, or momentary failure to appreciate a non-apparent danger, on the part of men accustomed to working about dangerous machinery, can hardly be called negligence, because, being inherent in human nature, the most prudent are not exempt from it, and where the employer, without reason or necessity, creates a danger, he has no right to expect never-failing and superhuman watchfulness on the part of the employe to escape it. To hold otherwise would be to require too little from the one and too much from the other.
[Ed. Note. — Eor other cases, see Master and Servant, Cent. Dig. § 801; Dec. Dig. § 248.*]
3.Master and. Servant (§ 209*) — Injuries to Servant — Assumption of Risk — Negligence of Master.
A man employed upon an oil derrick does not assume the risk of his employer’s negligence in failing properly to inspect the chains by which the drill is driven.
[Ed. Note. — Por other cases, see Master and Servant, Cent. Dig. § 552; Dec. Dig. § 209.*]
4. Damages (§ 185*) — Evidence—Physical Pain.
Where the skull of a workman is crushed by a blow received from a broken and flying chain, but he lives for several weeks thereafter, and is, at times, semiconscious, .and so far conscious as to respond to calls made upon him by smiling and attempting to speak, the testimony of a witness, who was with him day and night, to the effect that he appeared, at times, to suffer intensely, taken in connection with an admission that experts, if sworn, would differ upon the question whether a person in a semiconscious state can suffer pain, authorizes the conclusion that the patient did suffer physical, though not, perhaps, mental, pain, and this notwithstanding that he -did not appear so to suffer at .any time when he was visited by the attending surgeon.
[Ed. Note. — Por other eases, see Damages, Cent. Dig. §§ 503-508; Dee. Dig. 185.*]
5. Death (§ 31*) — Actions eoe Causing Death — Right oe Action — Statutoey Pbovision.
Under Act No. 120 of 1908, brothers and sisters, in default of child, widow, or parent, succeed to the right of action which a person who dies from an injury had, at the moment of his death, against him by whose fault the injury was received, and they (the brothers and sisters) have also a right of action upon their own account for the recovery of damages for the injury, moral or mental, as well as material, sustained by them by reason of such death.
[Ed. Note. — Por other cases, see Death, Cent. Dig. §§ 35-46; Dec. Dig. § 31.*]
Provosty, J., dissenting in part on rehearing.
Appeal from Pirst Judicial District Court, Parish of Caddo; A. J. Murff, Judge.
Action by L. P. Underwood against the Gulf Refining Company of Louisiana. Prom a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.
Modified and affirmed.
D. Edward Greer and Thigpen & Herold (P. C. Proctor, of counsel), for appellant. Hall & Jack, for appellee.

Opinion:
PROVOSTY, J.
The plaintiffs sue in damages for the death of their brother, who, while in the employ of'the defendant, was killed by a gear chain snapping and one of its ends whipping around and striking him on the head.
The defenses are that the chain was not defective and was not being operated negligently, but that its breaking was nothing more than what frequently happens with the best of such chains, no matter how carefully operated; and that the death of the brother of plaintiffs was attributable to his own negligence in unnecessarily exposing himself to the danger that overtook him.
The link that broke was nearly worn through, and we are satisfied that to its weakened condition the break was due, and not to any overstrain such as unavoidably comes sometimes upon these chains and snaps them; but we are equally satisfied that the brother of plaintiffs exposed himself unnecessarily to the danger, and that therefore no recovery can be had.
He and other workmen were engaged in drilling an oil well. The apparatus used in this work consists of a towerlike derrick, 22 feet square at the bottom and going up tapering to a height of some 85 feet, open on all sides, down the center of which descends the pipe to be sunk into the ground; and of an engine, outside of the derrick, which imparts to the descending pipe a rotary motion whereby it makes its way into the ground, the motive power being transmitted from this engine to the machinery by which the pipe is held and rotated inside of the derrick, by the chain in question. There are two floors to the derrick; one about three feet from the ground, and the other about fifty. The lowest crosspiece of the derrick is about eight feet above the lower floor.
The brother of plaintiffs, when he received his fatal injury, was standing on this lower floor, inside of the derrick, on a line with the chain in question and with the sprocket wheel upon which it revolved, and -near this sprocket wheel. This place was very dangerous, for the reason that whenever the pipe, in going down, would encounter rock or other hard substance, the chain was likely to break and. the ends fly off, as happened in this case; and this would happen frequently, and the workmen knew it. The position of the brother of plaintiffs when at work was on the top floor, and his way thither was at a safe distance from the place where he received his injury.
He came and stood at this dangerous place needlessly and thoughtlessly. True, he had but just come there when the accident happened; but he should not have come at all.
His presence there is sought to be justified on the score that he came to get orders from the foreman and driller, who, for operating the drill, stood within three feet of the place. But he could have communicated with the foreman just as well by approaching him from another and safe direction, or by standing safely further away from him.
In a case where the servant has been injured as the result of his having voluntarily taken an unnecessary risk, the master is not responsible, even though by his negligence the risk thus incurred by the servant had been made greater than it would otherwise have been. Day v. Railroad Co., 121 La. 180, 46 South. 203; Darsam v. Kohlmann, 123 La. 164; Welton v. Lumber Co., 114 La. 842, 38 South. 580; Howlett v. Bridge Co., 123 La. 709, 49 South. 480; Ball v. Railroad, 123 La, 7, 48 South. 565.
The judgment appealed from is set aside, and the suit of the plaintiffs is dismissed, at their cost.
48 South. 781, 20 L. R. A. (N. S.) 881.