106 Iowa 54 | Iowa | 1898
Por about two and a half years before the month of August, A. D. 1892, when the accident in question occurred, the plaintiff had worked for the defendant in its-coal house at Red Oak. IPis duties required him to shovel coal from the cars into chutes, to break the coal and wet it for use, and to assist in filling the tenders of locomotive engines with coal. In the month referred to, the coal house was rebuilt; and, while that was being done, tenders were-supplied with coal from cars which were placed on the coach track next to the main line. The sides of the coal cars were about four feet high, and, when a tender was to be loaded, it was run onto the main line track, opposite the coal car. A
The liability of the defendant depends upon the meaning and application of section 2071 of the Code (section 1307, Code 1873), which is as follows: “Every corporation operating a railway shall be liable for all damages sustained by any person, including employes of such corporation, in consequence of the negligence of agents or by any mismanagement of the engineers or other employes of the corporation, and in consequence of the willful wrongs, whether of commission or omission, of such agents, engineers, or other employes, when such wrongs are in any manner connected with the use and operation of any railway, on or about which they shall be employed, and no contract which restricts such liability shall be legal or binding.”
The peculiarity of the railroad business, which distinguishes it from any other, is the movement of vehicles or machinery of great weight on the track by steam or other power, and the dangers incident to such movement are those the statute was intended to guard against. If, then, the injury is received by an employe whose work exposes him to the hazards of moving trains, cars, engines, or machinery on the track, and is caused by the negligence of a co-employe in the actual movement thereof, or in any manner directly connected therewith,' the statute applies, and recovery may be had. Beyond this, the statute affords no protection. The purpose of the lawmakers was evidently not to make men, because employed by railroad companies, favorites of the law, but to afford protection owing to the peculiar hazards of their situation. That the plaintiff’s employment exposed him to the peculiar dangers of railroading admits of no doubt. The important question is whether the negligence of Forshay, causing the injury, was so immediately connected with and incident to the movement of the engine and tender as to come within the statute. We think it was. The engine had been detached from an incoming freight train, and was moved opposite the coal car, for the purpose of filling the tender with coal to be used as fuel, and, this done, by running two planks from the tender to the coal car. Over these the coal was carried in boxes, and, when this work was done, these were necessarily taken from the tender to enable the engine to move from the main track. In doing this, Forshay picked up and pushed one of the planks just as the plaintiff was about to step on the coal car, and, to save himself, the latter was compelled, in order tc avoid this plank, to jump sidewise among some boxes below. The very purpose of removing the- plank was to enable the engine to move, and if, in doing this, Forshay was negligent, such negligence was so closely connected with the movement as to come within the terms of the statute. Indeed, it is diifi