Opinion ID: 1897018
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Coby Clark

Text: The thrust of the plaintiff's action against Coby Clark differs in scope from the plaintiff's cases against the other two co-employee defendants, C.D. Clark and Gerald McLeod. The cases against the latter two dealt with their alleged breach of the employer's duty to provide a safe place to work. Accordingly, the question of their liability turned on whether in his case in chief, the plaintiff had proved the delegation to, or the voluntary assumption by, either of them, of any of the employer's common law or statutory duties, and if so, whether the evidence showed for either a breach of duty that proximately resulted in the plaintiff's injury. For C.D. Clark and Gerald McLeod, the determination as to liability fell squarely within the holdings of Fireman's Fund American Ins. Co. v. Coleman, supra , and its progeny. The plaintiff argues, however, that Fireman's Fund and the other co-employee cases have no bearing on his action against Coby Clark due to the fact that the plaintiff's action did not allege Clark's breach of any of the employer's duties at law. Rather, the plaintiff insists that Coby Clark breached another duty, one personal in nature and derived from the common law, that required every worker to exercise reasonable care in the conduct of his or her job responsibilities so as not to injure another. The plaintiff contends that Coby Clark breached this common law duty to the plaintiff by negligent operation of the crane at the jobsite in Pickens County. Thus, the plaintiff argues that he only had to prove simple negligence against this defendant. We do not dispute the plaintiff's contention that one fellow employee can be liable to another fellow employee for his negligence proximately causing the injury to the latter. This is precisely the rule of law in Wright v. McCord, 205 Ala. 122, 88 So. 150 (1920), which addressed the identical duty raised by the plaintiff here. In Wright, an injured employee brought an action of negligence, jointly and severally, against his employer, J.S. Walker, under the Employer's Liability Act, and against his fellow employee, H.C. McCord. The trial court sustained the demurrer to the allegations of the complaint against the employer, and this Court affirmed that action on appeal. This Court, however, reversed the trial court's sustaining of fellow employee McCord's demurrer to the allegation of the complaint, because the plaintiff's allegations of McCord's breach of his common law duty to the plaintiff stated a viable cause of action. In discussing this duty, the Court wrote: It is not his contract with the master that exposes the agent to liability to such third persons; it is the liability of the servant independent of that of the master, by reason of the servant's common-law obligation to so use that which he controls as not to injure another. The mere relation of agency does not exempt a person from liability for an injury to a third person proximately resulting from the neglect of duty of such agent for which he would otherwise be liable. Wright, 205 Ala. at 126, 88 So. at 153. In light of this duty, the Court concluded that an employee, once he had undertaken the discharge of his job responsibilities, was thus duty-bound to use reasonable care in the manner in which he executed his work so as not to cause injury to another person. Id. The holding in Wright also agrees with the general rule of law that [a]s between themselves, servants mutually owe to each other the duty of exercising ordinary care in the performance of their service, and whoever fails in that respect is liable for any injury resulting therefrom to his fellow servant. 5 Thompson, Commentaries on the Law of Negligence § 5777 (2d ed. 1905); see also, Woods, Law of Master and Servant § 325(a) (2d ed. 1886) (it may be said to be well established that one servant may maintain an action against a co-servant for injuries sustained by reason of [the] other's negligence); 2 Sherman & Redfield, A Treatise on the Law of Negligence § 245 (6th ed. 1913) (The authorities are now unanimous in favor of holding a servant liable to his fellow servants for injuries suffered by them through his personal negligence in the performance of those duties which each man owes to his fellow men); accord, 57 C.J.S. Master and Servant § 578 (1948); 53 Am.Jur.2d Master and Servant §§ 398-99 (1970). In fact, our research has failed to reveal a case from any jurisdiction that has reached a contrary holding. So clearly established was this general rule that the Mississippi Supreme Court wrote: There is nothing to any rule of law which acquits one fellow servant of liability to another fellow servant when the accident in question was primarily and proximately caused by the negligence of such fellow servant. Greer v. Pierce, 167 Miss. 65, 147 So. 303, 304 (1933). The negligent employee does not enjoy any of the special common law rules that protected the employer from actions by an injured employee. The doctrine that a servant cannot recover for the negligence of a co-employee only precludes actions by the injured employee against his employer. 5 Thompson, supra, at 247. Falling in the same category are the common employment and fellow servant defenses, Lovell v. DeBardelaben Coal & Iron Co., 90 Ala. 13, 7 So. 756 (1890); Louisville & Nashville R.R. v. Allen's Adm'r, 78 Ala. 494 (1885), the duty of the employee to avoid his own injury, Bessemer Land & Improvement Co. v. Campbell, 121 Ala. 50, 25 So. 793 (1899), and the doctrine of the employee's assuming the risk of an injury from a fellow employee. Boggs v. Alabama Consolidated Coal & Iron Co., 167 Ala. 251, 52 So. 878 (1910). None of these defenses or rules protects the negligent employee from any action brought by an injured fellow worker who alleges a breach of the employee's duty at common law. Nor is Wright v. McCord the only Alabama case that recognizes this common law duty. Rather, it is one of a line of cases that establish a duty on the employee, not just to fellow workers but, as well, to any person, Carter v. Franklin, 234 Ala. 116, 173 So. 861 (1937); Mayer v. Thompson-Hutchinson Bldg. Co., 104 Ala. 611, 16 So. 620 (1894), or any property, Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co. v. Wilkes, 231 Ala. 511, 165 So. 764 (1936), overruled on other grounds by Henderson v. Wade Sand & Gravel Co., 388 So.2d 900 (1980); Hilburn v. McKinney, 204 Ala. 158, 85 So. 496 (1920), that is injured or damaged as a result of the employee's failure to use reasonable care in the discharge of his job responsibilities. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiff stated a valid cause of action when he alleged that Coby Clark had breached this common law duty emanating from one fellow servant to another. This duty arose, not only because of Clark's relationship as a fellow worker of the plaintiff, but also because Coby Clark had complete control of the operation of the crane. Coby Clark was thus duty-bound to exercise reasonable care in his job responsibilities regarding the operation of the crane so as not to negligently injure Floyd. However, there remains the question, to which we now turn, of whether the plaintiff presented at least a scintilla of evidence of a breach of this common law duty by Coby Clark in his operation of the crane in Pickens County. Wright and its line of cases hold that whether the breach of this duty resulted from actions of omission or of commission is unimportant. Mayer v. Thompson, supra. Consequently, a defendant's liability for his negligent performance may result from [his] omitting to do what ought to be done as well as [from] performing his duties in an improper manner. Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co. v. Wilkins, 231 Ala. at 514-15, 165 So. at 766. But he must be a wrongdoer in such sort that under the particular facts of the case his negligence or wrongful act was a proximate cause of an injury. Carter v. Franklin, 234 Ala. at 119, 173 So. at 863. When the plaintiff stepped off the leads, while holding onto a loop in the cable, he expected the cable to be taut and to suspend him in mid-air until the crane operator could lower him to the ground by the slow release of the cable line. He testified that that was what had happened in the 15 to 20 times that he had previously ridden the cable to the ground with another crane operator at the Tuscaloosa jobsite. On this particular instance, however, the line was not taut because Coby Clark had created slack in the line, purportedly to facilitate the plaintiff's task of disconnecting the cable from the piling. Coby Clark also testified that he had applied a brake on the line after he had released the slack. In any event, at the Pickens County site, when he stepped off the piling, Floyd immediately dropped the distance of the slack (approximately 4 feet), at which time the line jerked. With this jerk, the plaintiff lost his grip on the cable and fell 30 feet to the ground, resulting in his injuries. The parties agree that either the presence of slack in the cable or the application of the brake on the line, or a combination of both, occasioned the plaintiff's fall. Nevertheless, these facts, without more, do not evidence Coby Clark's negligent operation of the crane. The evidence reveals that the normal operation of a leads man includes his manually pulling the cable downward with one hand while holding onto the leads ladder with his other hand. Indeed, this is the very procedure utilized by Willie Taylor and Floyd on the first two piling operations with Coby Clark at the Pickens County jobsite. Thus, under the normal operating procedure of pulling the cable downward, neither the presence of the slack nor the application of the brake would have a bearing on the question of a breach of Clark's common law duty to Floyd by the manner in which he operated the crane that proximately caused Floyd's injuries. We do not have an instance here of the plaintiff's losing his grip on the leads ladder and falling to the ground due to Clark's actions in allowing slack in the cable and/or his applying a brake on it; nor do we have an instance here in which the plaintiff was injured while descending from the leads according to the standard operating procedure for a leads man. Rather, the evidence clearly establishes that the plaintiff fell while attempting a procedure different from the norm, i.e., instead of climbing down the ladder after he had disconnected the cable, Floyd stepped off the leads, while holding onto the cable, and relied on the crane operator to lower him to the ground. Under these circumstances, the fact that plaintiff Floyd expected the line to be taut and that he expected to be safely lowered to the ground by this defendant is immaterial to the question of Coby Clark's negligent breach of his common law duty. The common law duty requires that Coby Clark use reasonable care in the performance of his job responsibilities as they relate to the operation of the crane. It does not require that Clark anticipate and provide for a contingency, such as we have here, that was not part of his normal job responsibilities, especially in light of the facts that the plaintiff fell on his first attempt to ride the cable with this crane operator and that he failed to present any evidence that would place Coby Clark at the Tuscaloosa jobsite at any of the times when the plaintiff had engaged in this practice. The plaintiff further admitted that he had never seen another employee of Clark Construction Company ride the cable to the ground and that, to the best of his knowledge, he was the only one in the company who descended from the top of the leads in that manner. On these facts, the plaintiff cannot contend that lowering him from the leads by the crane cable was part of Clark's job responsibilities as a crane operator. Indeed, the record is void of any evidence establishing that this task was part of Clark's duties as a crane operator. The issue of common law liability for negligent performance of a duty that was not part of the employee's job responsibilities was addressed in three of the common law-duty cases previously cited. In Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co. v. Wilkes, supra , the Court stated that the defendant was certainly not personally responsible to plaintiff for failing to do something not within the scope of his duties. 231 Ala. at 520, 165 So. at 772. The same result was reached in Carter v. Franklin, supra , and Hilburn v. McKinney, supra. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiff failed to prove a breach of Coby Clark's common law duty to Floyd, because the task of transporting him from the leads by means of the crane cable was not part of Clark's normal job responsibilities as a crane operator. Absent a duty, the verdict against Coby Clark, grounded in negligence, cannot be sustained. As our sister court wrote: But it must be borne in mind that this rule of liability always rests upon the question of the duty of the agent toward the injured party and his negligent disregard or violation of that duty, and that where no duty arises there can be no liability. Mississippi Power & Light Co. v. Smith, 169 Miss. 447, 153 So. 376, 379 (1934). The plaintiff contends that he established by his testimony, albeit disputed by Coby Clark, that Clark had actual notice of the plaintiff's intent to ride the cable down from the top of the leads. This testimony, however, does not establish that there was a breach of Clark's common law duty, because, as outlined above, Clark had no duty to assist the plaintiff in his endeavor to ride the cable down to the ground. Having concluded that the plaintiff did not prove a breach of duty owed by Coby Clark to this plaintiff, whether common law or otherwise, we hold that the trial court should have granted Coby Clark's motion for a directed verdict, or in the alternative, a J.N.O.V. Since we have reversed the judgment against all of the defendants, we need not address the remaining issues raised on this appeal. For the foregoing reasons, the judgments against Continental, C.D. Clark, Gerald McLeod, and Coby Clark, are due to be, and they are hereby, reversed, and the cause is remanded. REVERSED AND REMANDED. MADDOX, ALMON, SHORES and HOUSTON, JJ., concur. ADAMS and STEAGALL, JJ., concur in the result. TORBERT, C.J., and JONES, J., not sitting.