Mattson v. American Steel & Wire Co.
Mattson v. American Steel & Wire Co.
Opinion of the Court
In the former opinion by the Chief Justice (200 Mass. 360) it is said that “ Because the regular engineer was away and the acting engineer was not familiar with the yard, the plaintiff was employed as a lookout.” From the present bill of exceptions it appears that the plaintiff was employed as a brakeman and had been so employed for three and a half years, and that it was his duty to ride on the foot board, as he was doing at the time of the accident, and keep a lookout and see that the track was clear. We do not think that the difference is so material as to compel a different conclusion in regard to the plaintiff’s due care. In either case he was bound to keep a lookout and see that the track was clear. The plaintiff testified at this trial,
One Dobie testified for the defendant and his testimony, which was new, tended to show that Locks was not a superintendent. It is plain that Dobie himself was a superintendent. The works ran day and night, but Dobie worked only during the day time. The plaintiff worked nights, and there was testimony tending to show that he did Dobie’s work at night. There was also testimony tending to show that he had charge of the stockers’ gang and that it was his business to get from the stockchaser, as he was called, directions as to the kind and amount of stock that was required for the different furnaces, and then to see that it was loaded into bucket cars by the stockers and taken by the engine to the furnaces. The plaintiff and the engineer were subject to his directions, or it could be found that they were, and there was also testimony tending to show that a gang called the shear gang received orders from him. He worked more or less with his hands, and if Dobie’s testimony was to be believed that was what he principally did. But it was for the jury to say what weight should be given to Dobie’s testimony and to decide upon the whole evidence whether Locks’s principal duty was or was not that of superintendence. In important, if not decisive, respects the case is substantially the same as it was before, and it cannot be said now, as the Chief Justice said in substance that it could not be said then, that there was no evidence warranting the jury in finding that Locks’s principal duty was that of superintendence, and that the accident was due to negligence on his part.
¡Exceptions overruled.
Before Sanderson, J.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Charles Mattson v. American Steel and Wire Company of New Jersey
- Status
- Published