Court Opinion

ID: 9444099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:41:32.519535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:43.011195
License: Public Domain

McALLISTER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I am of the view that the trial court properly submitted this case to the jury under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. When the thing which produces the injury is shown to have been under defendant’s control and management, and the occurrence is such as does not happen in the ordinary course of events if due care is exercised, the fact of the happening of the injury itself affords sufficient evidence to support recovery, in the absence of an explanation by defendant tending to show that the injury was not due to defendant’s want of care. Exclusive control is not a sine qua non for the application of the doctrine; legal control, responsibility for the proper and efficient functioning of the device which caused the injury, and a superior, if not exclusive, position for knowing or obtaining knowledge of the facts which caused the injury are sufficient. Pitcairn v. Perry, 8 Cir., 122 F.2d 881.
In this case, the accident was caused by a bolt which broke while holding the heavy ash pan, and resulted in its falling upon the railroad employee. The facts of the accident warrant the inference of *197negligence. The foregoing inference might be explained away by evidence on the part of defendant that it was not guilty of negligence.
Here, the injured employee, before working on the ash pan, had secured a new bolt from the railroad’s toolroom. The fact that this was a new bolt which had never been in use does not, in my opinion, exonerate the railroad from negligence, or, in the language of the rule, explain away the inference of negligence. There was a duty on the part of the railroad, in purchasing such bolts, to inspect them in order to ascertain that they were not defective, for they were used in work where defective bolts might imperil the lives and safety of the employees of the railroad. Such a duty wás, of course, implicitly admitted by the railroad, inasmuch as it introduced evidence of its practice in purchasing bolts; and this practice was to inspect the bolts at the plant of the company from which they were purchased, or at the time they were delivered to the railroad company. One of the railroad company’s witnesses testified that a certain bolt had been sent for test purposes to the engineer of physical tests of the railroad company three and a half months after the accident, by the claims department of the railroad'. Moreover, while a chemical test was made of the bolt in evidence — and it appeared that the chemical analysis was of the utmost importance in determining whether a bolt had sufficient tensile strength — there was no testimony by anyone making such a test; and there was no evidence that the bolt which was sent to the engineering department for physical and chemical tests was ever inspected before it broke, or even that it was the same bolt which caused the accident.
The railroad is not a guarantor of the instrumentalities and attachments of its equipment. If inspections, suitably and properly made, would not reveal a defect, and if it did not exist at the time that an accident occurred, the railroad must be held to have used due care. “But the mere fact that it had suitable inspectors, and that its inspectors inspected, does not carry with it, of necessity, the conclusion that [it] was properly inspected;” and it is for the jury to say whether or not, upon all the testimony, the presumption that the bolt was defective at the time of the accident had been removed by testimony showing the kind and extent and time of inspection. See Erie Railroad Co. v. Schomer, 6 Cir., 171 F. 798. “In short, it is not enough that the evidence of the defendant would, if true, be sufficient to rebut the presumption, because it is for the jury to pass upon the credibility of the witnesses and the truth of the testimony”. Southern Railway Co. v. Hussey, 8 Cir., 42 F.2d 70, 73, 74 A.L.R. 1172.
The rule of res ipsa loquitur creates an inference of fact. It casts on the opposite party the duty of going forward with evidence or risking that the jury will infer negligence from the occurrence. It will take the case to the jury unless the entire evidence is such that the presumption cannot stand against it. It is not enough that the evidence of the defendant would, if true, be sufficient to rebut the presumption, because it is for the jury to pass upon the credibility of the witnesses and the truth of the testimony. To justify a directed verdict, the evidence must be so conclusive that the minds of reasonable men could not differ as to the conclusions to be drawn therefrom. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Simmons, 10 Cir., 153 F. 2d 206.
There was no proof that the bolt which broke was ever inspected before the accident. There was no proof that the bolt which was subjected to physical and chemical tests was the broken bolt that caused the accident. The happening of the accident, under the circumstances disclosed in this case, called for application of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur and justified the drawing of an inference of negligence on the part of the railroad company. It cast upon the railroad the duty of going forward with the evidence, or risking that the jury would infer negligence from the occurrence. It required *198a submission to the jury, since the mere fact that the bolt was new and unused was not such evidence that the inference of negligence could not stand against it. Even though witnesses might have testified as to inspecting the bolt before the accident, it would still be for the jury to pass upon their credibility and the truth of the testimony.
For the foregoing reasons, I am of the opinion that the question of appellant’s negligence should be submitted to the jury. On the other aspects of the case, I concur with the opinion of'Judge Miller.