Russell v. Joplin Transfer & Storage Co.
Russell v. Joplin Transfer & Storage Co.
Opinion of the Court
This action was instituted in the circuit court of McDonald county and afterwards taken on change of venue to Barton county.. Defendant James Bragassa was doing business under the name of Hughes Stone Company. Plaintiff recovered judgment below on a petition which alleges that on November 17, 1910, be was in tbe employment of defendants who were engaged in installing a steam boiler and engine at the “gravel works” of the defendant Bragassa; that the defendants in preparing to raise and adjust the smokestack to the boiler were proceeding to raise a mast or gin pole and had selected for the gin pole an iron rail, being an ordinary railroad rail about twenty-five feet long and weighing approximately 700 pounds. Plaintiff then describes the method of raising it and charges the acts of negligence to be that defendants’ superintendent loosened one of the guy ropes to the rail and allowed it to fall, and that the defendants were further negligent in not securely fastening the foot of said rail and said ropes so as to prevent the rail from slipping or coming loose and in selecting the rail for such mast or gin pole.
The evidence discloses that the Joplin Transfer & Storage Company had undertaken to move the boiler
It is insisted in the brief filed here in behalf of the appellant that the employee of the transfer company who was sent to Noel to assist in adjusting this' boiler, was simply loaned to the defendant Bragassa. We can readily dispose of that question as the record clearly refutes that theory. The testimony discloses that the Joplin Transfer & Storage Company was to receive $50 or $60 for hauling the boiler from the place where it was purchased and for unloading it and
Under; this state of facts there can be no question as to the liability of the defendant transfer company on account of any acts of negligence that may have been committed there during that work, as alleged in the petition; and as we have said the record in the case is in such shape that a consideration of.any alleged errors occurring at the trial is impossible, it therefore becomes our duty to affirm the judgment of the trial court, which is accordingly done. Affirmed.
070rehearing
ON MOTION FOB BEHEABING.
PER CURIAM. — On the insistence of the defendant, Joplin Transfer & Storage Company, in its motion for- a rehearing, that objections to certain instructions given at the request of the plaintiff were not considered in the opinion, suffice it to say that the assignments of error relative to such instructions were necessarily disposed of in the discussion of the relation existing between this defendant and its employee. The objections originally, and in the motion for a rehearing, urged against the instructions are based, we think, on the erroneous assumption by this defendant that the relation between it and said employee was different from that of the usual relation of master and servant.
The motion for a rehearing is denied.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.