Court Opinion

ID: 9830036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:49:57.329141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:11.290584
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing. .
[5] We think this court erred in reversing this case, referable to the allegations and the testimony as to the absence of a spring on the single pole switch as an element of negligence. The testimony was that this switch was in such a position as that “any jar,” or “any vibration” would cause the same to drop and close the circuit. If the switch was “very nearly balanced” and was “arranged so that gravitation would very nearly close it,” as testified to by Hutcherson, the witness, the deceased, who was employed as manager to operate the machine, and had operated the same in such capacity, must necessarily have known the defective condition of said switch, and knew its obvious tendency, from any “jar” or “vibration,” to drop and close the circuit, thereby starting the machinery, as held in the original opinion. It is hard for us to determine the character of the spring as a device in connection with the switch used to prevent the tendency mentioned; but the witness said it was one “when you open it the spring holds it back so that gravitation or vibration would not close it,” and that “this one was not so equipped that if the power was turned off at the power house- it would go off automatically.” The Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the case of Toomey v. Donovan, 158 Mass. 232, 33 N. E. 398, said:
“The remaining question relates to the admissibility of certain testimony offered by the plaintiff, tending to show that for a long time prior to the accident automatic guards had been in use upon such machines for the purpose of preventing the head block from coming down in case there was any defect in the machine, and that the defendants knew of such guards, and the plaintiff did not know of them. This testimony was excluded by the court, and we think rightly. For a part of three years prior to the accident, the plaintiff had worked upon a machine like that upon which he was injured. He was 25 years old at the time of the accident, and, for aught that appears, was of ordinary intelligence. He knew that there was no guard on the machine, and no way of preventing the head from coming down if the machine was out of order. The fact that there was no guard was an obvious one; and in working on the machine, he must be held to have assumed the risk resulting from the absence of a guard. Whether he did or did not Icnoio that automatic guards were in use on such machines was immaterial. Be agreed to worh on the machine as it was, and the defendants owed no duty to hi/m to put on the guard. Having assumed the risk of operating the machine without a guard, the plaintiff cannot now claim that one should have been put on.”
Also, see, Klutts v. Gibson Bros., 37 Tex. Civ. App. 216, 83 S. W. 404; Chicago Veneer Co. v. Walden (Ky.) 82 S. W. 295.
It may be that it is a jury question whether the deceased could be charged with knowledge of a particular device, the absence of which is asserted as negligence of the master, and which is a matter that has troubled this court; but the deceased was employed to manage and operate the machine, and if we correctly apprehend the pole switch, any simple device, a string tied to a nail with a loop to go over the switch pole, would have prevented the tendency to drop.
[6] The plaintiff in error, in her motion for rehearing, assigned that we erred in holding that the deceased—
“assumed the risk from failure to equip said machinery with lock nuts, cotter keys, buckle yokes, and latticed floors, since in order for deceased to have assumed the risk it was necessary for him, not only to have known of such defects, but also for him to have apprehended the danger of such defects, and the evidence does not show conclusively that he either knew of the defects or appreciated the dangers thereof.”
The latticed floors over the cogs or machinery we think we sufficiently disposed of in the main opinion' as a ground of negligence permitting recovery, the absence of which the deceased assumed the risk. The other matters assigned we.did not mention. As to the “lock nuts, cotter keys, and buckle yokes,” alleged as negligence in the petition, in connection with the testimony, we have been unable to fully grasp as a proximate cause of the injury. With reference to such matters the only serviceable purpose we can see is that such a condition had a tendency to increase the “shaky” condition of the merry-go-round, thereby producing more “jar,” “vibration,” or oscillation. If so, unless some one was in the framework, or upon the machinery or against the same, producing a jar or shake creating the tendency *863of the switch to drop, how the condition of said lock nuts or buckle yokes could have otherwise caused the same to have dropped we are unable to deduce; if the machinery had started, thereby increasing the jar or vibration, the plaintiff in error of course could not be assisted — the switch had already dropped. We are not assuming that plaintiff in error is arguing that the defective condition of said lock nuts or buckle yokes, or defective machinery otherwise, if either was the cause of Hutcherson going up into the merry-go-round, would constitute an efficient or proximate cause of his injury — such a doctrine is wholly untenable —but if the other contention is made, that the vibration is augmented by the loose condition of the machinery, plaintiff in error may be in this condition: When Hutcher-son, the deceased, went into the upper part of the merry-go-round to work (where the evidence circumstantially as a jury question may place him) and in doing said work he shook the machinery in some manner with his body, and thereby caused the switch to drop, likewise there could be no recovery. Texas & Pacific Coal Co. v. Kowsikowsiki, 10S Tex. 173, 125 S. W. 3.
As to the assignment in plaintiffs’ motion raising the question of another servant turning on the current, aside from the reasons given in the original opinion, Wyatt is not a vice principal. Lantry-Sharpe v. McCracken Co., 105 Tex. 407, 150 S. W. 1156.
Plaintiff in error’s motion for rehearing is overruled, and defendant in error’s motion is granted; and the judgment previously entered reversing this cause is set aside, and the judgment of the district court is affirmed.