Grochulski v. Porath
Grochulski v. Porath
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff’s intestate' suffered fatal injuries on August 17, 1913, while in defendant’s employ, resulting from the capsizing of a dirt wagon of which he was the teamster. Upon trial of the case in the circuit court of Wayne county, a verdict was directed for defendant at. the conclusion of plaintiff’s testimony, on the ground that the evidence failed to disclose any actionable negligence on his part.
Defendant was a contractor engaged in excavating a sewer along Thirty-Second.street in the city of Detroit, removing the dirt as excavated to a dumping ground located between McGraw avenue on the south,
“When I saw him coming in this time, he came in off Warren avenue. He came in on the road track. Wherever this man showed him, he dumped the dirt over — took it and dumped it over. I showed Mr. Grochulski where to dump this. He had come over that same road twice before that morning, over that same road he dumped. He was a block or a block and a half —there is no streets in between — from Warren avenue when the wagon tipped over. I might have been a block or more away when the wagon tipped over. I went to him as soon as I saw the wagon tip over. The hind heels of the box tipped over, and the front wheels were standing. When I got over to the wagon, Mr. Grochulski laid under the team — under the wagon. The wagon box was turned over. * * * The horses were standing right in front of the wagon. * * * The box was tipped over, the front wheels were turned round and stood fast on the ground, and the box was lying on the ground off from the — ■ As soon as I found Mr. Grochulski, I tried to help him out, I helped him out alone. * * * I went over and got a man that was making a cement walk, and I told this man to call up the ambulance, and the ambulance came and took Mr. Grochulski away. When the wagon tipped it went over on the left side. I didn’t see any hole or gutter that the left hind wheel of the wagon went down into or was down in when it tipped over. There was a driveway there made by the wagons, when they go on the empty lot. They used that before they got there for the dump. The wagon tipped a little bit off from the roadway. I looked at the left hind wagon track and saw what the wheel went into at the time the wagon tipped over, and wherever the road was made there, why, I was supposed to fix it up. It was part, of my work to see that this roadway was kept level and the ruts filled so that the wagon could be driven over. * * * There was no hole in this roadway at the point where the wagon tipped over, only in the driveway from the traffic. I did not measure the hole down in this gutter that this left hind wheel went into, but it was 10 or 12 inches. I didn’t*273 have any tapeline or anything to measure it with, but it was about the width of the wagon wheel. It was about 10 or 12 inches deep.”
On cross-examination, he testified further that, when deceased brought his first load, witness gave him directions and told him not to dump at the old place of dumping, where the accident occurred and where they had formerly been dumping, but to dump where witness was at work leveling; that, when he talked with deceased about it, “he says that he drives the team and I don’t. * * * He says he was not coming to the place where I was standing. He dumped near Wesson avenue.” After some confused testimony as to locations and routes, witness finally said;
“The point where the accident occurred was not on the regular driveway to the dump where I was working. It was about a block or block and a half away from the regular driveway to the dump where I was working. We had been dumping for seven days before the accident at the spot that I have marked on here near McGraw avenue and Campbell.”
It is contended in behalf of plaintiff that the question of defendant’s negligence should have been submitted to the jury on the proposition that, in recognition of the dangerous character of the employment of teamsters in driving over this dumping ground, defendant had assumed to keep the driveways they were required to use in a reasonably safe condition by delegating an employee to care for and so keep them, and whether a rut 10 or 12 inches deep was reasonably safe was a question of fact which the court erroneously disposed of as a matter of law.
As to the claimed rut or depression in the driveway, it is contended by defendant, and the trial court so held, that in any aspect of the case its duties as to a safe place for the employee to work only required the exercise of that reasonable degree of provision and
Relying upon Plucinski’s testimony that it was part of his work to see that the road “was kept level and the ruts filled so that the wagon could be driven over,” plaintiff contends that his failure to fill the rut in question was evidence of failure to perform a nondelegable duty of defendant which raised an issue for the jury under the holding in Scoop v. White Co., 182 Mich. 539 (148 N. W. 762). The essential facts calling for the application of the nondelegable duty rule in that case are radically different from the facts in the instant case, amongst them being that the teamster in that case was driving where his. duty- called him and where he was ordered to drive; that the danger ahead, which was not visible to him as he drove, arose from inability of the teams to hold back large loads of heavy logs while going down a steep- hill when the road was not properly sanded, and the “sand men” especially stationed along the hill to care for and sand the road at that inherently dangerous place were re
We are not cited to, and have been unable to find, any authority which holds, or indicates, under like or analogous facts, that a rut in a temporary driveway of the kind, depth, and under the conditions claimed here, is evidence of actionable negligence on the part of those who made or caused it to be made.
Plucinski’s testimony that it was his duty to keep the roadway level and ruts filled in is. clouded, as to time when, by his further testimony that they had moved their operations from that locality and he was leveling at another place, where he instructed deceased and others to dump, and which was reached by another way. Taking his statement of his duty, however, as it reads and unqualified, he also testifies that when he went over there he did not see any hole that the left hind wheel of the wagon, which tipped to the left, went down in when it tipped over; that "the wagon tipped a little bit off from the roadway,” and "there was no hole in this roadway at the point where the wagon tipped over, only in the driveway from the traffic.”
Unquestionably, the numerous conflicting and far from lucid statements; in his testimony relative to material facts, presumably within his knowledge, give rise to uncertainty as to what he actually knew or
The judgment is therefore affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- GROCHULSKI v. PORATH
- Status
- Published