131 Iowa 700 | Iowa | 1906
The ultimate facts which the evidence for plaintiff tended to establish, so far as they are
There were various grounds urged in the motion for a directed verdict, but they are reducible to three propositions contended for in behalf of defendant as follows: First, that the negligence, if any, of defendant in failing to keep the portion of the track leading to plaintiff’s room- in proper condition for use was not the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury; second, that plaintiff’s own negligence contributed to his injury; and, third, that plaintiff assumed the risks incident to the defect in the track. ¡/In the view which we take
In support of our conclusion, it would be idle to attempt any exhaustive citation of authorities, nor would it be practicable to state any rule which may be applied to • all cases involving the question of proximate cause. A rule' general enough to cover all cases would be too general for any practical purpose. Two illustrations will sufficiently serve to indicate the conclusion reached by this court in cases very similar to the one before us. In Watters v. Waterloo, 126 Iowa, 199, it i|( said that causal relation does not exist where the result proceeds from a source wholly independent of the
The cases relied on by counsel for appellant are not in point. In Hayes v. Michigan Central R. Co., 111 U. S. 228 (4 Sup. Ct. 369, 28 L. Ed. 410), the question was whether the wrongful failure of the defendant company to fence its track was the proximate cause of an accident to a boy who attempted in response to a signal from another boy, to get upon a moving freight train. The court, in reversing a judgment on a directed verdict for the company, said (page 241 of 111 U. S., page 374 of 4 Sup. Ct. [28 L. Ed. 410]) : “It is further argued that the direction of the court below was right, because the want of a fence could not reasonably be alleged as the cause of the injury. In the sense of an eiflcient cause, causa causans, this is, no doubt, strictly true; but that is not the sense in which the law uses the term in this connection. The question is, was it causa sine qua non, a cause which, if it had not existed, the in
In Aldrich v. Concord & Montreal Railroad, 67 N. H. 380 (36 Atl. 252), the defendant company was held liable for injury to an employé from the falling of logs from a freight car on which they were loaded, the supports intended to hold the logs in place having been weakened by the shock due to the previous derailment of the car. But evidently there was here no intervening responsible cause. In Knapp v. Sioux City & P. R. Co., 65 Iowa, 91, Id., 71 Iowa, 41, it was held that where the defendant’s negligence in failing to keep its track in repair, caused a locomotive engine in charge of the plaintiff to leave the track, and brought about the occasion for plaintiff to reverse the lever in order to arrest the movement of the engine and avert the dangers incident to such an accident, the negligence of the company was the proximate cause of an injury to the engineer, due to his effort in thus reversing the engine. Here it is apparent the defective condition of the track brought^ about the very necessity to act under an emergency which was the cause of the injury. But in the case before us there was no emergency, no occasion to act in one way rather than in another. The derailing of the train in the Knapp case necessitated one specific act on the part of the engineer — that is, the throwing back of the lever to reverse the engine — while in this case the derailing of the car necessitated no act whatever as
It is further urged that the pit boss negligently directed the plaintiff to place himself in front of the car, and to lift, in order to replace the car upon the track; but in this respect the pit boss was certainly not acting as vice principal. From the evidence, the fact would appear to be that the pit boss was anxious to have as much coal run out as possible, and urged plaintiff to load some cars in this room where he had previously been at work, and run them out, and to induce him to do this over a track which required greater exertions than usual he offered to furnish him assistance; but any assistance thus furnished him was the assistance of a co-employe and not of a vice principal. Such assistance was furnished on a previous day under somewhat similar circumstances by a driver, and on the day in question by the pit boss himself; but the fact that the pit boss- was for some purposes a vice principal did not- necessarily make him a vice principal in everything which he did. If .he. acted as an operative only, the liability of his master for his acts was not other or different from that which would result with reference to the acts of any other operative. Collingwood v Illinois & Iowa Fuel Co., 125 Iowa, 537; McQueeny v. Chicago, M. & M. St. P. R. Co., 120 Iowa, 522; Fosburg v. Phillips Fuel Co., 93 Iowa, 54; Beresford v. Am. Coal Co., 124 Iowa, 34; Barnicle v. Connor, 110 Iowa, 238; Scott v. Chicago G. W. R. Co., 113 Iowa, 381.
There was entire failure of plaintiff to make out any negligence on the part of defendant proximately contributing to plaintiff’s injury,- and the judgment is affirmed.