Court Opinion

ID: 8770238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 12:41:37.764245+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:02:10.230635
License: Public Domain

ROSS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). I am unable to agree to the judgment in this case. As stated in the opinion, the sole negligence alleged in the complaint was the improper and unnecessary placing by the defendant company of the fuse in the front part of the motorman’s cab, at a height about as high as the motorman’s face, and in a position of great danger to the motorman while engaged in the operation of the car. It appears from the record that on the trial the plaintiff was *211permitted, over the objection and exceptions of the defendant, to show by the witnesses Paulson and Owens that the defendant company was negligent in having a loose screw in the coupling, by reason of which one end of the wires dropped down and came in contact with the hose-hanger, thereby grounding the electric current and causing the explosion which injured the plaintiff. Permitting one of the screws in the coupling to be loose was a separate and distinct act of negligence from that alleged, having no connection whatever with the placing of the fuse in the proper place in the car. That a plaintiff cannot allege one cause of action and recover upon another is, according to my understanding, well-established law; one of the reasons for which is that the defendant is entitled to be informed of the precise ground upon which the plaintiff seeks to recover, in order to prepare his defense. Not only may the introduction in this case of the improper proof of negligence, not alleged, have injuriously affected the defendant, but it very likely did do so, in view of that part of the instructions of the trial court in which the jury was told that before it could render a verdict for the plaintiff it must find from a fair preponderance of the evidence “that defendant was, as a matter of fact, guilty of some act or acts of negligence which constituted a proximate cause of the injury received by plaintiff, if you believe he was injured.” “Some act or acts” of negligence might very readily have been understood by the jury as including the loose screw in the coupling which Paulson and Owens testified in their opinion caused the explosion complained of.
In respect to the defense of an assumption of risks by the plaintiff, set up by the defendant, the court instructed the jury as follows:
“It will be for the jury to consider the facts as proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence, and determine whether that defense has been sustained or not. To make a complete and valid defense on that ground, it should be proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the plaintiff himself was informed as to the risit there was — the nature of the danger in which he was placed for work with that fuse located as it was. He is chargeable with the assumption of the risks that were necessarily incident to the employment, and with the assumption of risks which ho knew about, of which he had knowledge —actual knowledge — and also with the assumption of risks which were obvious and which should have been known to him, if he had been vigilant and alert for his own sake. If the fuse was placed in a situation where it would injure him by its explosion, and there was negligence on the part of the defendant in placing it there, the question then to be decided is whether the plaintiff himself knew that it was liable to explode and flash in his eyes and do him injury. If he had that knowledge it should be considered that he assumed all the risk, and he is not entitled to compensation by reason of the injury which he suffered.”
Upon the same subject the court also gave this instruction:
“The defendant in this case has pleaded that the plaintiff assumed the risk attending the injuries received. You are instructed that the burden of proof is upon the defendant to establish this, as well as every other affirmative allegation pleaded by the defendant. Without considering the question whether the rule charges an employé with knowledge of defects, except with regard to such appliances or instruments as he is engaged himself in using, I think it is sufficient to say that the law does not under any circumstances exact of him the use of diligence in ascertaining such defects, but charges him with knowledge of such only as are open to his observation; beyond that he has the right to assume, without inquiry or investigation, that his employer had dis*212charged his duty of furnishing him with safe and proper Instruments and appliances.”
From the foregoing it will be seen that the trial court, in more than one place, in effect distinctly instructed the jury that, if the defendant negligently placed the fuse where it did, there was no assumption of risk by the plaintiff, unless he knew the fuse was liable to explode and do him injury. In another place the jury was told that the plaintiff was chargeable “with the assumption of the risks which he knew about, of which he had knowledge — actual knowledge — and also with the assumption of risks which were obvious and which should have been known to him, if he had been vigilant and alert for his own sake.”
In my opinion, the instructions are inconsistent, as well as erroneous. In one respect they are. too favorable to the defendant, for I do not understand that it is essential that a plaintiff shall be “vigilant” or “alert” to discover risks, but that the law is that, to justify a finding that an employé assumed the risks of his employment, it is not essential that he shall have had absolute knowledge of such risks, if they were such that an ordinarily prudent man in his situation, by the exercise of reasonable and ordinary prudence, would have known of them. Choctaw O. G. & R. Co. v. Holloway, 114 Fed. 458-460, 52 C. C. A. 260; 26 Cyc. 1196-1203, and numerous cases thére cited.
For the reasons stated, I respectfully dissent from the judgment here given.