Court Opinion

ID: 9809372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:10:29.079693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:41.123659
License: Public Domain

Montgomery, J.,
dissenting. I find myself embarrassed in expressing my ideas in this matter for the reason that in the opinion of the court all of the members except myself concur in a view of a part of the record and of the treatment of it by the plaintiff’s counsel, which I think is not the correct view, and one which I can not adopt. The case on appeal and the brief of the plaintiff’s attorneys are now before me on my table. The plaintiff requested the court to give a number of prayers for special instructions to the jury. Down to and including the 7th, there is no confusion. The next one of the prayers was numbered “sixth” and was in these words: “A rule of the railroad company agreed to by the plaintiff may be waived or abrogated for the company by the conduct or making an order contrary to such rule when it was the duty of the plaintiff to obey such order.” If you find by the greater weight of evidence in this case that the plaintiff signed the paper ‘B’ and agreed not to couple cars except with a stick; if you find further that the conductor on plaintiff’s train ordered him to make the coupling, you are instructed that the conductor bad the power to waive or abrogate the said contract.” Then follow these words in parenthesis: “The above instruction was given and defendant *719excepted.” That instruction, though numbered “sixth,” as we have said, in the case made out by his Honor, followed number 7, and ought to have been numbered 8 in the original record. The plaintiff’s counsel did not make the mistake in numbering the special prayers for instruction asked by the plaintiff. They saw the mistake made by the judge in making up the ease in numbering the plaintiff’s special prayers, and treated the second one numbered' “sixth” as the eighth; for in their brief they say: “In support of the eighth instruction and to show that it was proper and that the exception to it (by the defendant) is without foundation, we invite the attention of the court to the following authorities: Mason v. Railroad, 111 N. C., 494; 18 L. R. A., 845; 32 Am. St. Rep., 814; Railroad v. Ross, 112 U. S., 377; Chambers v. Railroad, 91 N. C., 475” — and those authorities cited show that the instruction which I quoted above was referred to in what the plaintiff’s attorneys, in their brief, called the "eighth” instruction, but which was numbered “sixth” by his Honor in making up. the case. In the case on appeal the next of the plaintiff’s special prayers is in these words: “The Legislature has enacted that any contract or agreement expressed or implied made by any employee of said company to waive the benefit of an action which he may have against the company for injuries shall be null and void, ‘and it seems,’ says the Supreme Court, ‘that the Legislature intended to put an end to such intentions (contentions) by saying in the first section of the Act that he shall have a right of action for injuries caused by such defective machinery and providing in the second section that he can not waive this right by contract expressed or implied.’ ” At the end of that request for instructions these words appear in parenthesis: “The above instruction was given and defendant excepted.” The plaintiff’s attorneys in their brief treat, that ás the ninth special prayer of the plaintiff in these words: “The ninth in*720struction is a summary of the fellow-servant Act and of the decision of this court in Coley's case, 128 N. C., 534; 57 L. R. A., 817, and was entirely proper, and his Honor committed no error in giving it.” It can be seen by an inspection of the record now before me that his Honor below, and not the plaintiff’s counsel, in making up the case, numbered the prayer, following seven, "sixthA His Honor made the error and should have numbered it eight, and the next succeeding one nine. The plaintiff’s counsel in their brief, as we have said, saw the judge’s error, and in their brief treated these two exceptions as eight and nine. They were not one instruction, but were clearly two, and about two entirely different matters involving different questions of law. The eighth concerned the power of a conductor to waive a rule of the company when it was the duty of the plaintiff to obey the order, as in Mason’s case referred to in the brief of the plaintiff’s counsel; and the ninth concerned the effect of the fellow servant law passed in 1897, five years after the decision in Mason's case, 111 N. C., 482. My views on the merits of the case are to be found in volume 131, page 476, of our Reports, embodied in the opinion written by myself for a unanimous court. I think the petition should be dismissed.