Court Opinion

ID: 9443985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:36:55.857696+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:39.956100
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The evidence was ample, I think, to sustain the answers of the jury to Question No. Two:

“Question No. Two:

“(a) Was any agent, servant, or employee of the defendant E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. negligent in pulling or jerking an air hose immediately before or at the time of the plaintiff’s fall?
“Answer: The employee of the defendant was — or was not — negligent : — was.
“(b) Was such negligence a proximate cause of the plaintiff’s fall?
“Answer: Such negligence was— or was not — a proximate cause:— was.”
The jury were further authorized, I think, to find that plaintiff was not con-tributorily negligent (Question No. Three and Answer thereto quoted in footnote 3 to the majority opinion). The plaintiff could not avoid being tripped. “I saw the hose when it came up, but the box was heavy and the man behind me was helping me along and I couldn’t stop. The hose jerked up in front of me and it tripped me before I could stop.” The jury might well have found from the evidence that defendant’s employee, charged with knowledge of plaintiff’s unavoidable peril and of his inability to stop, was negligent in suddenly jerking up the air hose immediately in front of the plaintiff, and that such negligence proximately resulted in plaintiff’s serious injury. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.