Court Opinion

ID: 9538930
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:44:05.826509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:17.046797
License: Public Domain

Hall, J.
(Dissenting.)
I respectfully dissent from that part of the controlling opinion in this case which holds that there was a jury issue on the question whether the appellant, Bob Lancaster, was guilty of negligence which proximately contributed to appellee’s injury. My record as a member of this Court will show that I am a strict adherent to the principle that all issues of negligence are for the jury to determine, but where no negligence is shown there is nothing *551left for a jury to pass upon. The cases are legion where this Court has so held, but as precedent for this view it is unnecessary to go any further than that part of the controlling opinion herein which holds as a matter of law that there was no negligence on the part of the principal contractor Michael. I am in full accord with that holding.
There are many facts in the record here which are not mentioned in the controlling opinion and which I feel are necessary to be set out in order that the full picture of this case may be seen. The stretch of new road was approximately eight miles in length. The surface had not been completed. Employees of the contractor, Michael, were engaged in the daytime in finishing up this work and in patching the paved portion where defects had appeared. Michael was required by his contract to permit local traffic on the road and he was powerless to keep all traffic off the road. He was required to maintain barricades and warning signs and he fully complied with this requirement in every respect. It was utterly impossible for any person to drive a vehicle onto the road without going completely around the barricades and driving onto the shoulder of the road in entering it. The paved portion was 22 to 23 feet in width. The watering truck, owned and operated by Bob Lancaster, was slightly under eight feet in width. It was a regular 1% ton Ford truck with a flat body. On top of this body was a water tank. On the occasion of the accident in question the two headlights on the truck were burning, the lights on top of the cab were burning, and the clearance lights were burning. The truck body was wider than the cab and on the right side there were two flares burning, one at the front corner and one at the rear corner. According to the record the truck was lighted up like a Christmas tree.
The equipment was standard in every respect. There is no complaint that anything was wrong with the equipment. Bob Lancaster had been engaged in this type of work for seventeen years and had never before had one of his employees injured and had never found it necessary to put watchmen in front of the truck to warn passing mo*552torists. On the night in question the Majors car was the only one which passed prior to the accident. ' The road was level and straight for a distance of at least one-half mile in each direction. Mrs.Majors saw the watering-truck pull over to the left side of the road a considerable distance before she reached it. The record shows without conflict that it is usual and customary when watering sod upon the shoulders of a new highway to drive the truck along the left side of the highway for the reason that the driver’s seat is always on the left side of the vehicle and it is necessary for the driver to keep the truck as near as possible to the extreme edge of the highway and to frequently look hack to see that the truck does not move too fast for the man handling the water hose. The truck here was on the very edge of the paved portion, which left a clearance of 14 or 15 feet of paved highway to its right which Mrs. Majors could have used in passing the truck. She had no business on the highway and was traveling it purely for pleasure. After seeing the truck move over to the left side of the highway in the course of the watering operation she continued toward it and did not avail herself of the open highway to the right of the truck. She knew the highway was under construction. A flagman in front of the truck could not have advised or warned her of anything that she did not already know. She claims that she slowed down, hut she did not stop. She turned completely off the pavement onto the shoulder of the road and struck the appellee knocking him about 45 feet and continued for a distance of about 145 feet before she brought her automobile to a stop. How a fair and impartial jury could have acquitted her of negligence is beyond comprehension or understanding. In my opinion her gross and wanton negligence was the sole proximate cause of this unfortunate accident, and this Court should so hold as a matter of law. Now let us examine the allegations of the declaration as to the negligence upon which appellee relies.
■ The negligence charged ag-ainst Bob Lancaster was (1) that he negligently allowed traffic to habitually pass *553through and to jeopardize and endanger the safety of the plaintiff while he was doing his work; (2) that he should have had signs near the place where his employees were engaged at work; (3) that he should have had more men on the job and that guardsmen should have been stationed in front of and behind this work with proper danger signals so as to afford reasonable protection to his employees while doing their work; (4) that it was his duty to formulate and promulgate safety rules for the protection of his employees; (5) that he should have had watchmen to warn the employees of approaching traffic and to warn approaching traffic of the presence of the workmen; and (6) that he should have had men with sufficient lights and other signals on each side of the -working crew to warn the public of the presence of the workmen.
As to the first alleged act of negligence, it is undisputed that under his contract with the State Highway Commission the principal contractor was obligated to permit the passage of local traffic and neither Michael nor the subcontractor had the right to prohibit traffic on the road.
As to the second alleged act of negligence, there wore signs at each end of this construction and all travelers were fully advised that the road was under construction. It is shown by the record that from the time the watering started until the time of the accident the Majors car was the only vehicle which passed along the road and Mrs. Majors knew full well that the road was still under construction and had not been opened to through traffic.
The third alleged act of negligence would be applicable if the appellee in this case had been required to work in the traveled portion of the road, where traffic was constantly passing, as was held in Gulf Refining Company v. Ferrell, 165 Miss. 296, 147 So. 476, which will be discussed later herein. In this case, however, the appellee was not working in the roadway but was completely off the traveled portion thereof and standing on the shoulder at a place where no reasonable person could have concluded that passing traffic would endanger him.
*554As to the fourth alleged act of negligence it is only when the work is both dangerous and complex that the master is required to adopt a reasonably safe system of work and promulgate safety rules. Tatum v. Crabtree, 130 Miss. 462, 94 So. 449; Brown v. Coley, 168 Miss. 778, 152 So. 61. Danger alone is not negligence as this Court has held on numerous occasions.
The fifth and sixth grounds of negligence are the only ones on which appellee relies for affirmance of his judgment. These are that Bob Lancaster should have placed watchmen in front of and behind the truck to warn his employees and the traveling public by lights or otherwise. Yet, it is shown without dispute that in the course of seventeen years in doing this very type of work no watchmen have ever been used and no employee of Bob Lancaster has ever been injured by a passing motorist. The experience of all these years demonstrates that reasonable care does not require a watchman. And, indeed, what could a watchman have done on this occasion?1 Mrs. Majors saw the truck lighted up like a Christmas tree and knew that it was on the left side of the road where for seventeen years Bob Lancaster had always operated similar trucks. She had just been over the road and knew that it was 22 and 23 feet in width. She must have known that there was ample passing space on the South side of the truck and yet by her gross and wanton negligence she turned off onto the shoulder of the road on the North side. Because of her utter disregard of the whole situation a watchman would in all probability have also been struck by her automobile.
It is significant to note that the controlling opinion does not undertake to say in what respect the employer could or should have exercised any more care than he did on this occasion. It does suggest, however, a matter which was not even alleged or claimed as negligence in the declaration when it says that “the jury may have found no reason why the hose of the watering tank could not have been placed on its right side”. The record shows *555that the hose was attached to neither side but to the top of the water tank and that the water was forced through the hose by means of a separate pump, and it further shows that this was standard equipment on all such jobs. The record further shows without dispute that it is always customary and necessary for the watering truck to travel on the left side of the highway so that the driver, who is on the left side, can keep the truck right on the edge of the paved portion and not get oft' on the sod and so that he can at intervals watch the man holding the hose and avoid traveling too fast.
There is some comment in the controlling opinion with reference to certain admissions made by Bob Lancaster. The record shows that Bob Lancaster was a most willing witness in favor of his son. He had personally paid out large medical and hospital bills in having his son treated for his injuries and was most interested in seeing his son recover from his insurance carrier, yet he was forced to admit that the equipment was all standard in every respect, that the truck was fully equipped with all necessary lights and warnings to passing motorists, that it was proper to operate it on the left side of the highway just as was being done, that it was necessary to do the watering in the nighttime so that the rays of the sun by day would not quickly cause the water to evaporate and cause the fertilizer to scorch the grass, that this work had been done by him in this manner, with this type of equipment, for a period of seventeen years without injury to a single employee, and that never during this entire time had he ever considered a watchman necessary. Under this situation no employer could reasonably be expected or required to have watchmen walking ahead of the truck to warn passing motorists.
There was no “rule of the road” applicable in this case which required this truck to travel only on the right side of the road. The “rules of the road” prescribed by our statute have no application to a road which is under construction. In Myers v. Sanders, 189 Miss. 198, 194 *556So. 300, 302, this Court held that when a road is under construction and the contractor is under obligation to permit local traffic thereon, as in this case, the act of the contractor in obstructing any portion of the roadway “was not a negligent (act) but a reasonable exercise of his right to carry on the work to completion, since he left a sufficient clearance for the local traffic and for others to pass in safety when exercising the vigilant caution and constant lookout required of them in traveling over a highway known to be under construction.” It should be noted, in passing, that in that case the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff and this Court without hesitation reversed the judgment entered thereon and rendered a judgment here for the defendant for the reason that it was held as a matter of law that the contractor was guilty of no negligence in obstructing a portion of the highway then under construction.
In my view the authorities cited in the controlling opinion are not applicable to the situation here presented. For instance, in Gulf Refining Company v. Ferrell, supra, the master directed his employee to squat upon the traveled portion of a busy city street which carried a large amount of traffic and to paint a “No Parking” sign upon the pavement under a promise that the master would provide a watchman to prevent injury to the employee while doing this work. The master failed to provide the watchman and the employee was struck and injured by a passing motorist. There the city street was open to all traffic which was constantly passing in both directions and the employee was required to work out in the line of traffic where he was in danger from every passing vehicle. If that had been the situation presented in this case I would readily agree that the master owed the duty of providing a watchman to protect his employee, but the employee here was not working in the highway but completely outside the traveled portion and upon the shoulder of the road at a place which was entirely safe from danger *557at the hands of any passing motorist in the exercise of one iota of care.
Billups Petroleum Company v. Entrekin, 209 Miss. 302, 46 So. (2d) 781, cited in the controlling opinion is likewise not in point. There the master operated a filling station by the side of a paved highway. The approaches to this filling station were surfaced with loose gravel placed there by the master. Customers entering and leaving the station were constantly knocking this loose gravel onto the paved portion of the traveled highway which had the effect of ball bearings under the wheels of passing traffic and a passing motorist was caused to skid from the pavement by reason of the condition which the master had created and to- strike the employee while engaged at his work in servicing a car which was parked at the filling station. It was held in that case that the master was negligent in failing to keep the gravel swept from the paved portion of the highway,, and that he should have reasonably foreseen that some such accident might occur because of his negligence.
In United Novelty Company v. Daniels, Miss., 42 So. (2d) 395, 396, cited in the controlling opinion, the master placed a servant on a -cold day in a closed room measuring eight by ten feet where a gas heater was burning with an open flame and required this youthful and inexperienced servant to use gasoline in cleaning the working parts of a music machine commonly known as a “juke box.” A rat ran from its hiding place in the “juke box” to a point underneath the burning gas heater where its gasoline impregnated coat of hair caught fire and it then ran back to its original hideout where a violent explosion occurred. The Court there pointed out that the presence of the rat was a mere incident “and serves chiefly to ratify the -conclusion that the room was permeated with gasoline vapors” which the Court held was a danger against which the master should have warned and guarded his servant.
*558Ill Coast Ship Company v. Yeager, 120 Miss. 152, 81 So. 797, cited in the controlling opinion, the master placed one of his servants on the inside of the hull of a ship under construction and at the same time had other employees on the outside boring trunnel holes through the ship which was about three feet in thickness. This boring was done with augers driven by air compression. The servant inside the ship could not hear these augers at work because of the great amount of noise incident to the work of the carpenters on the inside. One of the augers drilled through the hold of the ship and struck the plaintiff’s foot and bored a hole completely through it before he could extricate himself. There was a crew of men boring these holes from the outside and it was shown that this same kind of injury had been previously inflicted upon an employee at work on the inside, and it was held that the master was guilty of negligence in not providing his employees in the ship with some kind of warning as to where the outside workers were engaged in boring the holes. In the case at bar no similar injury had ever before been inflicted upon an employee in a period of seventeen years of this type of work, and the principle on which the Yeager case was decided clearly has no application here.
The controlling opinion next cites Russell v. Williams, 168 Miss. 181, 150 So. 528, 151 So. 372, and says that it is more in point than the above mentioned authorities. In that case the master required a servant to ride on the running board of a truck upon a busy street in the City of Hattiesburg, a place of known danger, and in turning across the street to the left the driver failed to give a signal for a left turn and the employee on the running board was injured by a motorist who was passing the truck on the paved and traveled portion of the street which was open to all kinds of traffic and was not under construction. That decision turned upon the point that the master was guilty of negligence in requiring his servant to ride in a place of known danger and bears no *559reasonable resemblance to the facts presented by the record here.
The case of Priestly v. Hays, 147 Miss. 843, 112 So. 788, cited in the controlling opinion, is based upon an act in an emergency whereunder it was held that the “rules of the road” are not always applicable even on a completed city street which is open to all kinds of traffic. I think it has been conclusively shown hereinabove that the “rules of the road” have no application to a highway under construction, but if any further authority be needed on this proposition it may be found in the cases of Czarnetzky v. Booth, 210 Wis. 536, 246 N. W. 574, and Parrish v. Smith, 102 Colo. 250, 78 P. (2d) 629.
Next cited in the controlling opinion is McLemore & McArthur v. Rogers, 169 Miss. 650, 152 So. 883. In that case the servant was required to stand on the ground and hold a guy line to prevent a steel beam from coming in contact with the wall upon its ascent while the building was under construction and the master negligently failed to protect the servant from the splashing of concrete at the top of the wall, as a result of which the servant was injured. It was there pointed out that the hazard to which the servant was subjected was one against which he could not protect himself and at the same time do his work and it was held that the master was negligent in exposing the servant to such a known hazard, but that case is a far cry from the facts presented by the record now before us.
The controlling opinion next cites Alabama and Vicksburg Railway Company v. Graham, 171 Miss. 695, 157 So. 241, wherein the railroad company was held not to have exercised ordinary care to maintain an overhead bridge with reasonably safe guardrails. The controlling opinion says that the ‘ ‘ guard rails were constructed in accordance with the plans and specifications of the State Highway Department.” An examination of the opinion, however, shows that the guardrails were constructed in accordance with standards in effect in 1921, but “that *560since 1921 the standards and requirements for wheel guards and guard rails have been materially raised by the State Highway Department, and that since 1931, this standard requires a wheel guard constructed of timbers 6" x 8" running the entire length of the bridge, resting on blocks 4" x 6" x 1' placed on the floor of the bridge at 3%-foot intervals, with another 6" x 6" timber on top of the 6" x 8", all securely bolted through the stringers of the bridge, making a wheel guard, after dressing, of 15" instead of 6" as originally required”. [171 Miss. 695, 157 So. 243.] It was further shown that the 1921 standard “did not afford sufficient protection to the traveling-public”, hut, notwithstanding this, the railroad company did nothing to make the wheel guards reasonably safe and as a result thereof an automobile, caught in an emergency, plunged over the inadequate wheel guard and fell over twenty feet to the ground below. Under these facts this Court held that there was a question for the jury to determine whether the railroad company had exercised reasonable care for the protection of the traveling public. Certainly no such case is presented by the record here.
The controlling opinion quotes finally from Supreme Instruments Corp. v. Lehr, 190 Miss. 600, 199 So. 294, 1 So. (2d) 242, 246, but the quotation stops too soon. It should have continued on and included the following-language of the Court which is here quite appropriate: “ ‘Courts will not be presumed to he visionless * * *. Theory should not outweigh practice and experience, and evidence which contests and contradicts the evidence of the senses must be received with caution.’ State, ex rel. [St. Louis Transfer Co.] v. Clifford, 228 Mo. 194, 128 S. W. 755, 758, 21 Ann. Cas. 1218. As stated in Hercules Powder Company v. Calcote, 161 Miss. 860, 138 So. 583, 584, ‘the case arouses a sympathetic interest, but we think there is no proved liability as against the appellant here.’ Although completely aware of the duty of this Court to repel any invasion into the realm of the trial jury (Williams Yellow Pine Company v. Henley, *561155 Miss. 893, 125 So. 552; Brown v. State, 153 Miss. 737, 121 So. 297), and that ‘it must be a rare case of negligence which the court should take from a jury’ (Bell v. [South ern] Railway Company, 87 Miss. 234, 30 So. 821), we must recognize the reciprocal duty of the Court to guard against any misapplication of substantive principles in those cases where the admitted facts do not justify their invocation. The peremptory instruction requested by the defendant ought to have been given.”
It was stated in the above case that “Theory should not outweigh practice and experience,” and yet in the case at bar seventeen years of experience and practice in the identical work which appellee was doing have failed to disclose a single instance of injury to an employee. Instead of basing its decision upon experience and practice the controlling opinion has gone into the realm of pure theory. Decisions should be based upon the standard of care which experience has shown to be reasonably safe.
In Brown v. Coley, 168 Miss. 778, 783, 152 So. 61, 62, this Court quoted from Seifferman v. Leach, 161 Miss. 853, 858, 138 So. 563, 564, where it was said: “The ground of liability in respect to unsafe places to work is not danger, but negligence. The rule is one of reason. There are many places in and around machinery which are dangerous and cannot be made otherwise. Those who work there, work in unsafe places, but this does not make the master liable as for furnishing an unsafe place * * * to work.” The Court then said in Brown v. Coley: “The true rule in the respects mentioned is that when the master has taken reasonable care to furnish a reasonably suitable and safe location for the doing of the particular work and has there installed the ordinary and generally approved equipment, suitable and proper for the place and for the work of the kind there being done and this equipment is in adequate repair and he has furnished the appliances easily to be used in connection therewith which when used will render the operation as safe as *562may reasonably be done, considering tbe nature of tbe work and the character of the machinery appropriate thereto, the master has performed his duty, in so far as concerns the doctrine of a safe place to work and of safe appliances with which to work, although there still be danger in the work. ’ ’
In Hammontree v. Cobb Construction Company, 168 Miss. 844, 854, 152 So. 279, 282, a case similar in many respects to the case at bar, this Court said: “The work there did not require any such concentration of effort or attention or place them in such a position at any time that each of them was not reasonably able to take care of himself, and hence cases such as Gulf Refining Company v. Ferrell, 165 Miss. 296, 147 So. 476, do not come into play. It must be a case of extra hazard and where, by the very nature of their work and of the situation in which they are placed, the workers cannot reasonably and fully take care of themselves, that in respect to open and obvious dangers an industry or work is to be loaded with the expense and incumbrance of numerous watchmen, or even with any watchman at all. It is not to be permitted that the law in its endeavor to exact reasonable care on the part of the master shall itself be unreasonable or go to unreasonable extremes. All work around machinery is dangerous; it will always be so, and particularly where, as in road work, the place constantly shifts over changing and difficult grounds. The test is not danger but negligence, and negligence is the failure to take such reasonable care as is taken or should be taken by experienced and prudent men. The master, as it seems to us, had taken that care here and there is, therefore, no liability for the unfortunate injury. ’ ’
In Mauney v. Gulf Refining Company, 193 Miss. 421, 427-430, 8 So. (2d) 249, 9 So. (2d) 780, this Court announced the following rules and principles which I feel are quite applicable to the case at bar:
The rule is firmly established in this state, as in nearly all the common law states, that in order that a person who *563does a particular act which results in injury to another shall be liable therefor, the act must be of such character, and done in such a situation, that the person doing it should reasonably have anticipated that some injury to another will probably result therefrom, D’Antoni v. Albritton, 156 Miss. 758, 766, 126 So. 836; Williams v. Lumpkin, 169 Miss. 146, 152, 152 So. 842; but that the actor is not bound to a prevision or anticipation which would include an unusual, improbable, or extraordinary occurrence, although such happening is within the range of possibilities. Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Bloodworth, 166 Miss. 602, 617, 145 So. 333; Burnside v. Gulf Refining Co., 166 Miss. 460, 470, 148 So. 219; Shuptrine v. Herron, 182 Miss. 315, 180 So. 620. This rule is affirmed in one way or another in cases which will run into the hundreds in this state. * * *
“In such a situation, as indeed in most situations, the principles of the common law must be kept within practicable bounds and so as not to occupy an attitude which would place it over and above the heads of those who must carry on the every day affairs of life. Hence, the law must say, as it does, that ‘care or foresight as to the probable effect of an act is not to be weighed on jewelers’ scales, nor calculated by the expert mind of the philosopher, from cause to effect, in all situations’, Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Bloodworth, supra, 166 Miss., page 618, 145 So. page 336; and that it would impose too heavy a responsibility for negligence to hold the tort feasor accountable for what was unusual and unlikely to happen, or for what was only remotely and slightly prohable. 38 Am. Jur., p. 713, § 61. As said by this Court in Meridian Grain, etc., Co. v. Jones, 176 Miss. 764, 776, 169 So. 771, 772, quoting Pollock on Torts, 9th Ed., p. 41: ‘A reasonable man can be guided only by a reasonable estimate of probabilities. If men went about to guard themselves against every risk to themselves or others which might by ingenious conjecture by conceived as possible, human affairs could not be carried on at all. The reasonable *564man, then, to whose ideal behavior we are to look as the standard of duty, will neither neglect what he can forecast as probable, nor waste his anxiety on events that are barely possible. ’ ”
It must be admitted in the case at bar that the act of Mrs. Majors in ignoring the 14 or 15 feet of open pavement and in recklessly and wantonly driving her car off onto the shoulder of the road was an unusual, improbable and extraordinary occurrence which had never happened before and against which no sort of human ingenuity and foresight could have protected a workman on the shoulder of the road. It was an act wholly in the range of a bare possibility but certainly not within the range of reasonable foreseeability. In my judgment the sole proximate cause of appellee’s injury was the gross and almost criminal negligence of Mrs. Majors, which Bob Lancaster could not have reasonably foreseen and for which his insurer should not be held liable in damages. I think the peremptory instruction requested by him should have been granted.
McGehee, C. J., and Holmes and Arrington, JJ., join in this dissent.