Court Opinion

ID: 9537730
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:22:01.781321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:55.467880
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ANGSTMAN:
(dissenting).
I think the judgment in this ease should be reversed.
*19In support of my position I need go no further than the case of Lillie v. Thompson, 332 U.S. 459, 68 S. Ct. 140, 141, 92 L. Ed., 73, and the authorities relied on by the court in that case.
In that case the complaint according to the court’s opinion, charged the following: “Respondent required her [petitioner], a 22-year old telegraph operator, to work alone between 11:30 p. m. and 7:30 a. m. in a one-room frame building situated in an isolated part of respondent’s railroad yards in Memphis. Though respondent had reason to know the yards were frequented by dangerous characters, he failed to exercise reasonable care to light the building and its surroundings or to guard or patrol it in any way. Petitioner’s duties were to receive and deliver messages to men operating trains in the yard. In order for the trainmen to get the messages it was necessary for them to come to the building at irregular intervals throughout the night, and it was petitioner’s duty to admit them when they knocked. Because there were no windows in the buildings single door or on the side of the building in which the door was located, petitioner could identify persons seeking entrance only by unlocking and opening the door. About 1:30 a. m. on the night of her injury petitioner responded to a knock, thinking that some of respondent’s trainmen were seeking admission. She opened the door, and before she could close it a man entered and beat her with a large piece of iron, seriously and permanently injuring her.”
The court held that defendant under the facts stated in the complaint “had a duty to make reasonable provision against” the danger. It held that breach of that duty would be negligence and that it cannot say as a matter of law that the injury did not result in part from such negligence. It held the complaint sufficient and that it was error to enter summary judgment for respondent. The court rested its opinion on the rule of law stated in the Restatement, Torts, section 302, Comment n.
Section 302 provides in part that “A negligent act may be one which: * * * b. creates a situation which involves an un*20reasonable risk to another because of the expectable action of the other, a third person, an animal or a force of nature. ’ ’ Comment to which the court referred in the Lillie case as its authority contains a number of illustrations where there would be liability. Among others is number 16, reading: “A is a landlord of an apartment house. He employs B as a janitor, knowing that B is a man of uncontrollable temper. C, a tenant of one of the apartments, complains to B of the inadequacy of the heat. B becomes furiously ang’ry and attacks C, seriously hurting him. A is liable to C.”
Here the allegations are that defendant railway company was advised of the dangerous propensities of its employee and of his “resentful, quarrelsome, vindictive, threatening and turbulent disposition towards plaintiff”, and that defendant company was requested to have him removed from the place where plaintiff was required to work because of the danger to plaintiff. This request was alleged to have been negligently disregarded and defendant Buettner without cause and without the fault or provocation of plaintiff wrongfully and maliciously assaulted plaintiff and gouged out his left eye. The facts alleged here make a stronger case of negligence on the part of the railway company than those in the Lillie case. In the Lillie case it was not an employee of the railway company who committed the assault, as here, and yet the court held there was liability.
The complaint was sufficient to state a cause of action and regardless of the fact that plaintiff at the oral argument abandoned his right to recover on the theory as alleged in his complaint that defendant Buettner at the time of assaulting plaintiff “was acting in the course of his employment by defendant railway company and in the scope of his employment as such employee. ’ ’
Likewise it is of no consequence that the answer contains allegations that plaintiff profanely abused and assaulted Buettner before the latter assaulted plaintiff. That allegation merely tendered issue as to whether Buettner’s assault was without *21provocation as alleged in plaintiff’s complaint. Such issues may not be resolved on motion for judgment on the pleadings.
If any further authority, aside from the Lillie case, is necessary, then attention is called to the case of Tatham v. Wabash R. Co., 412 Ill. 568, 107 N.E. (2d) 735, 33 A.L.R. (2d) 1287, where a case practically parallel with this on the facts was held to be ruled by the Lillie ease and that the complaint was sufficient.
Neither the case of Davis v. Green, 260 U.S. 349, 43 S. Ct. 123, 67 L. Ed. 299, nor Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Southwell, 275 U.S. 64, 48 S. Ct. 25, 72 L. Ed. 157, is in point here.
In the Davis case it was charged that the railway company negligently employed a dangerous man with notice of his characteristics. But this allegation was not sustained by proof. On this point the court said, [260 U.S. 349, 43 S. Ct. 124] “We see nothing in the evidence that would justify a verdict unless the doctrine of respondent superior applies.” The court simply held that there was neither allegation nor proof that the killing was done to further the master’s business or as “anything but a wanton and wilful act done to satisfy the temper or spite of the engineer.” The opinion is rested on the proposition that there was no proof and in fact no allegation that would bring the case within the rule of respondent superior, i. e., that the assault was done in furtherance of the master’s business. It simply held that the case did not have to do with primary negligence for having employed a dangerous man with knowledge of his dangerous propensities since the evidence failed to make out a case in that respect.
In the case of Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Southwell, supra, the facts were that the victim of the assault (not the one making the assault) was the one who had known dangerous characteristics. It is not comparable to this case. The court’s summary of the facts was as follows [275 U.S. 64, 48 S. Ct. 26] : “* * * Fonvielle, the general yard master, knew that Southwell, the man who was killed, on previous occasions had used threatening language to Dallas, who shot Southwell; that Fonvielle *22knew or ought to have known that they were likely to meet when they did; that Fonvielle was with Dallas, his subordinate, just before that moment and that Dallas said to him ‘Cap. all I want to do is to ask Southwell to lay off of me and let me alone,’ and that Fonvielle said that he must not see Southwell, that if he saw him and talked to him it might bring about unpleasant consequences; that Fonvielle left Dallas and after having gone a short distance saw him and Southwell approaching each other and had taken a few steps towards them with a view to separate them in case of an altercation, but that before he had time to reach them the shot was fired. Fonvielle knew that Dallas had a pistol but there was a strike at the time. Dallas was a special policeman and had a right to carry it and not unnaturally did. * * *”
The fact that the person assaulted and not the one making the assault was the dangerous man furnished the basis for the court’s opinion is made plain by what the court said, viz: “The only sinister designs of which there is any evidence were of Southwell against Dallas, unless Dallas’ remark just before the shooting be taken to foreshadow the event, which it certainly did not seem to until after the event had happened. It appears to us extravagant to hold the petitioner liable in a case like this. See St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co. v. Mills, 271 U.S. 344, 46 S. Ct. 520, 70 L. Ed. 979.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Here the reverse is true. According to the complaint the railway company knew of the dangerous characteristics of the defendant employee who committed the assault and was warned of the likelihood that he might do so long in advance of the event.
Mere knowledge of the provocative nature of the one assaulted as in the Southwell case would not show negligence on the part of the railway company. Before it could be held to be negligent there must have been, as here, allegation that it knew of the dangerous propensities of the one who actually made the assault in advance of the event. That case does not support the defendant’s contention here. This difference between the Lillie *23case and the Davis and Southwell cases is what drew from the court in the Lillie case the following: ‘ ‘ The cases cited * * * do not cover the fact situation set forth in the pleadings in this case.” The fact situation here is exactly the same as in the Lillie case. But if either the Davis or Southwell case by any stretch of the imagination can be said to support the defendant’s contention here then they must be held to be overruled by necessary implication by the ease of Lillie v. Thompson which is the last case on the subject by the Supreme Court of the United States.
The case of Young v. New York Central R. Co., 88 Ohio App. 352, 88 N.E. (2d) 220, 222, so strongly relied on in the majority opinion, is not comparable to this. In that case plaintiff had worked with the man who assaulted him by relieving him at the end of his shift and the evidence showed that they “ ‘got along all right.’ ” The employer had not been warned as here of the danger to plaintiff of being required to work with the one making the assault. Likewise that case did not turn on the sufficiency of the complaint as does this.
The case of St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Mills, 271 U.S. 344, 46 S. Ct. 520, 70 L. Ed. 979, relied on in the Young case and cited with apparent approval in the majority opinion here, bears no resemblance to this case. There the injury was done by strikers and the employer had furnished a guard, for employees and hence it was held that its duty was discharged. It should be noted that in the Lillie ease the grounds were not guarded or patrolled. Likewise the case of Green v. Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line Ry. Co., 151 S.C. 1, 148 S.E. 633, reversed in 279 U.S. 821, 49 S. Ct. 350, 73 L. Ed. 976, is not comparable to this since in that case the injury was done by a gang of robbers over whom the railway company had no control.
The United States Supreme Court did not state the basis of its opinion but evidently it was on the ground that there was no proof of negligence since the defendant kept men on the grounds policing the premises.
*24In my opinion the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded with directions to overrule the motion for judgment on the pleadings.