Pike v. Tallassee Falls Manufacturing Co.
Pike v. Tallassee Falls Manufacturing Co.
Opinion of the Court
The plaintiff (appellant) and his brother carried a wagon load of seed cotton to the defendant’s public gin for the parpóse of having it ginned. As a part of the mechanism of the plant a seed box was provided into which the seed from the ginned cotton was blown. The seed box was so contrived as to permit the discharge of the accumulated seed into a wagon or other receptacle stationed below the outlet of the seed box. The bottom of the seed box was made of
Counts 1 and 2 were stricken on confessed demurrer. By amendment counts 3 to 8, inclusive, were added to the complaint. By further averment of counts 5 and 6, the allegations of the dangerous character of the lever, the exposure thereto of plaintiff in taking his seed from the seed box, and the failure to give plaintiff warning of the averred danger, thereby causing his injury, were stricken from these two counts. Count 8 was evidently intended to charge wantonness, but under familiar rulings here the count charged no more than simple negligence. S'o construed count 8 is legally identical with count 7. Count 8 was held subject to demurrer, while count 7 was held not subject to demurrer. We have, then, the plaintiff’s case stated in counts 3 to 7, inclusive, and the last-numbered count, in legal effect, the same as count 8.
Count 4 charges the negligence to have been in that of the servants, etc., of the defendant “in and about the operation of said gin.” As just stated in reference to count 3, there Avas no testimony in support of this charge of negligence.
Count 5 lays the injury to the servants, etc., of the defendant, acting within the scope of their employment, in that “the lever * * * was negligently loosened or caused to come loose by the defendant’s agents, servants, or employes, or by direction or instruction of defendant’s agents, servants, or employes.” There is an entire want of proof to sustain this averment.
Count 6 — a count, in simple negligence, through the more aggravative, was attempted to be charged — is substantially the same as count 5, and was, hence, likewise unsustained in the proof.
Count 7 attributes the injury to the negligence of defendant’s servants, etc., in this: That “said lever was negligently loosened or caused to come loose by the defendant’s agents, servants, or employes,” and the injury resulted. As said • before, there was no proof of such negligence by any servant, etc., of the defendant. The allegation in this count, and in others, if they can be so construed, that plaintiff was ignorant of the averred dangerous character of the lever, and the further allegation that plaintiff was instructed or directed to get his seed from the seed box (and we may here in
No ruling of the court limited or hindered the plaintiff in any effort of his to sustain the material averments of the complaint, as indicated; hence rulings adverse to plaintiff were without injury to him.
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.