Koneski v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad
Koneski v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This action is brought to recover for personal injuries received bv the plaintiff while in the employ of, and engaged in the work of, the defendant company, at its railroad yard at Secaucus. A part of the equipment of this yard was an ash-pit, which may be briefly described as a stretch of railroad track about two hundred feet long, constructed upon iron brackets or pedestals, at a height
The proofs in the plaintiff’s case show, and the fact is undisputed/that, in the ordinary conduct of the business in the yard, when the ashes were to be removed from an engine at night, the engineer and fireman having it in charge would bring it to the ash-pit, put out its headlight and other lights, and turn it over to one Irvin, a hostler, who then ran the engine into the pit, and moved it from place to place, when it was necessaiy to do so in order to find vacant places in which to dump the ashes. It was also shown in the plaintiff’s case, and is not disputed by the defendant company, that the customary method employed to warn workmen in the ash-pit of the approach of an engine to the pit, or of its movements on the pit, was the ringing of its bell or the blowing of its whistle. The case of the plaintiff was that no bell was rung or whistle blown upon the engine which struck him, and that he was entirely ignorant of its proximity until it struck him.
The rule to be adduced from our earlier decisions upon this question is that, where the giving of the warning is not incidental to the work upon which the employe, whose duty it is to give the warning, is engaged, he is to be considered as the representative of the master, and not as a fellow-servant, in the performance of that duty, but that where the duty of giving the signal is incidental to his general employment, his failure to perform that duty is not imputable to the master.
In the case of Belleville Stone Co. v. Mooney, 32 Vroom 253, we held that the duty imposed upon a foreman in charge of the blasting in a stone quarry to give timely warning to those that worked under him when a blast was to be fired, bore no direct relation to the other work upon which he was engaged, and that, therefore, in the giving of the warning, he stood in the place of the master. In the later case of Germanus v. Lehigh Valley Railroad Co., 45 Id. 662, we held, for the same reason, that a foreman in charge of a gang of track repairers was the representative of the master in giving warning of the approach of trains. On the other hand, in the case of Miller v. Central Railroad Co. of New Jersey, 40 Id. 413, we held that the duty of a brakeman upon a coal train, which had practically become stalled upon account of wet and slippery rails, to go back with a flag as a signal of warning to the engineer of a following train, was one which was incident to his employment as brakeman, and that Iris failure to perform that duty—resulting, as it did, in a collision in which the engineer of the following train was killed— was not a neglect for which the common employer was re
In our opinion the present case comes within the principle of the Miller case, rather than within that of the Belleville Stone Company and Cennanus cases. If an employe of the defendant had been delegated by it to attend at the ash-pit and warn those at work there of the approach of engines, and his failure to give warning had been the producing cause of the accident to the plaintiff, the case would then, in its legal aspect, have been parallel with those last mentioned. But the duty of blowing a whistle, or ringing a bell, which rests upon the engineer or hostler in charge of an engine, is an incident: in the operation of the engine, and failure to perform that duty, therefore, does not impose responsibility upon the master tor injuries received by another employe engaged in the common work. That the plaintiff, the engineer and the hostler who had charge of the operation of the engine which produced the plaintiff’s injury, were engaged in an employment having a common object, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of the work to which they were put, is entirely settled by our cases. McAndrews v. Burnes, 10 Vroom 117; Ewan v. Lippincott, 18 Id. 192, and cases cited.
'The judgment under review will be reversed, and a venire de novo awarded.
For affirmance—None.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.