42 Ala. 672 | Ala. | 1868
The first ground of demurrer amounts to nothing more than a general demurrer, and there could be no error in overruling it. — Robbins v. Mendenhall, 35 Ala. 722; Helvenstein v. Higgason, ib. 259; Burns v. Mayor of Mobile, 34 Ala. 485.
The complaint is not obnoxious to the objection for uncertainty made by the second and seventh assignments of demurrer. It was not incumbent upon the plaintiff to specify the place where the injury alleged was sustained, and, therefore, the third assignment of demurrer was not well taken.
The sixth assignment of demurrer is as follows: “ It appears that plaintiff was an employee of the company, and the matters alleged do not make such a case as will charge defendant.” The specified fault imputed by the complaint in this assignment, is, that the plaintiff was an employee of the company. Forbearing verbal criticism, we understand the objection to raise the question, whether the condition of employee of the defendant corporation, at the time of the alleged injury averred by the plaintiff, is a legal reason
The defendant was liable to its servants for injuries resulting from its negligence. When passengers on a railroad are injured in consequence of a defect in any instrument employed by it, it is a presumption, disputable but not conclusive, that the injury resulted from negligence. 2 Redfield on Railways, 190, § 11; Hand S. R. R. Co. v. Higgins, 5 Am. Law Reg. 715 ; S. C., Redfield on Railways, 533, § 131; S. C., 36 Mo. 418 ; Edgerton v. N. Y. & H. R. Co., 35 Barb. 193 ; Curtis v. R. & S. R. Co., 18 N. Y. 534.
But the same principle does not prevail in reference to servants of a railroad, as we shall see. ' The established doctrine of the law unquestionably is, that the onus of proving negligence is upon the injured servant. — 2 Redfield on Railways, 200, § 15 ; Perkins v. E. R. Co. & B. M. R. Co., 29 Maine, 307 ; S. C., 1 Am. Railway Cases, 144.
Our own decisions in M. & O. R. Co. v. Jarboe, mss., (1 Div., 30th April, 1868,) and Steel & Burgess v. Townsend, 37 Ala. 247, are not opposed to that proposition. In those cases the question was, whether a loss of goods, or injury to them, was within an exception to a contract of affreightment ; and it was held that the onus of proving that the loss or injury came within the exception was upon the common carrier ; that it did not fall within the exception, unless due care and diligence had been used, and that therefore
The charge here, however, was not that the onus of proof of care and diligence was upon the defendant, but that it was cast upon it by a failure to have a suitable and proper engine. It bases the proposition that the onus of proof is shifted to the defendant upon the assumption of its absolute duty to have a suitable and proper engine, as contradistingushed from its duty to use due and proper care and diligence to have such engine. Does the law impose upon a railroad corporation such absolute duty to its servants, or does it only impose the duty of using due diligence to have a suitable and proper engine ? If the former question be answered in the affirmative, then the defendant guarantees absolutely to its servants the proper quality of all its engines, and it is liable, notwithstanding the utmost care and diligence is used. We can perceive no reason to support the conclusion, that the badness of the engine could create the presumption of negligence, and have the effect of shifting the onus of proof from the servant to the carrier. If the assumption that it was the absolute duty of the defendant to have a suitable and proper engine be correct, then the court has made an unmerited concession to the defendant in only deducing the inference that the onus of proof was changed. Upon that assumption he should have drawn the inference of an unqualified liability, and in that view the charge would be too favorable to the defendant, and he would not object to it.
Error, therefore, in the charge is shown, and shown only by maintaining the proposition that the defendant’s obligation or duty to its servants was discharged by the exercise of due and proper diligence to have and keep suitable and proper engines. To impose upon the master a liability for injuries to the servant resulting from causes, against which due care and diligence fail to provide, absolves the servant from the risks necessarily incident to the business in which, he is engaged. There are perils incident to the servant’s employment against which caution and prudence can not perfectly guard. Those perils and risks the servant must be presumed to know as well as the master, and when he
In America, the earliest case touching the subject is Munday v. R. Co., 1 McMullen, 386, where the liability of a railroad corporation to a servant for an injury received when on its cars was denied, unless there was fault in the master. In Farwell v. R. & W. R. Corporation, 2 Metcalf, 49, which is the leading American case in reference to the relation of railroads to their servants, the precise question of the liability of a railroad to its servant for an injury arising from a defective locomotive, did not arise, and Chief Justice Shaw, who delivered the opinion, withheld any expression upon the subject. In the later Massachusetts case of Seaver v. Bond M. R., 14 Gray, 466, the question arose,
In Buzzell v. Laconia Manufacturing Co., 48 Maine, 113, it was ruled (a servant having been injured in consequence of a defective bridge,) that the master’s liability depended upon negligence and want of care, and the declaration was held defective for lack of an averment that the insufficiency of the bridge was known to the defendant, or would have been known but for the want of proper care and diligence. In Noyes v. Smith & Lee, 28 Yermont, 59, there was an injury to an engineer resulting from defect in an engine. It was decided that there does not arise from the relation of master and servant the dffiy of furnishing an engine, well constructed and safe to the engineer, and that when there was no actual notice of defects in an engine, and no personal blame exists on the part of the master, there is no implied obligation on his part that the engine is free from defect, or that it can safely be used by the servant. See, also, to the same effect, Hard v. V. & C. R. Co., 32 Yermont, 473. In Keegan v. W. R. Corporation, 4 Selden, 175, the liability for injury to a servant caused by a fault in an engine was placed upon the established fact of negligence and misfeasance, and the distinction herein before stated between passengers and servants is declared. There are a number of other decisions in New York to the same effect. Wright v. N. Y. C. R. Co., 25 N. Y. 562, reviewing the decision of the supreme court, reported in 28 Barbour, 80, refers the master’s liability to his misconduct or negligence, and in relation to defects of machinery, says, knowledge must be brought home to the master, and proof given that
We attain the following conclusions, from the foregoing-collation of authorities : It is not an absolute duty of a railroad to furnish a suitable and safe engine. It is its duty to use due care and diligence to furnish such engine. When an injury has occurred to a servant in consequence of a defect in an engine, the burden is upon the plaintiff to show negligence, or the want of care and diligence in the defendant corporation. The onus of proof is not shifted to the defendant, by the fact that an injury has resulted
The proposition of the second charge is, that if the plaintiff’s injury was caused by a defect in the engine, not known to him, of which defendant’s servants charged with the duty of receiving notice of such defects, and remedying the same previously, had notice, and if such servants being so notified had previously repaired the engine, but failed to remedy the particular defect above stated, the defendant would be liable. This charge is obviously correct in assuming that notice to the servants, who were agents of the defendant to receive notice of defects in the engine, would affect it with notice. If it designated one or more servants to receive such notice for itself upon an established principle of law, notice within the scope of the agency to the agent would be equivalent to notice to the principal.— Smith v. Oliver, 31 Ala. 39; Wiley, Banks & Co. v. Knight, 27 Ala. 336 ; Mundine v. Pitts, 14 Ala. 84. The propriety of this portion of the charge is also questioned in reference to the allegations of the complaint. It is contended, that under the complaint, the defendant can only be charged on account of a neglect, which consisted of a failure to remedy a defect which it would have known, hutfor the want of proper care and diligence, and not on aceouut of negligence consisting in a failure to remedy a defect of which it was legally informed. This question we leave undecided, because we doubt in reference to it, and on another trial it can be easily avoided by adding another count to the complaint.
Another objection made to this charge, is, that it subjects the defendant to liability for a failure of its servants, who repaired the engine to remedy the defect. The inference of the defendant’s liability from such failure of its servant can only be sustained by the maintenance of the two propositions, that negligence of the servant is a legal conclusion from such failure, and that the master is responsible for the. negligence of the servant. If the failure to remedy the defect does not conclusively demonstrate negligence, the proposition of the charge is not correct. If it does demonstrate negligence, still, the proposition of the charge is erroneous, unless the master
An artisan charged with a duty of repairing within the scope of his handicraft, is not conclusively shown to have been negligent by a failure to remedy some defect specifically pointed out to him. He may have attempted to remedy it, and exhausted the skill and care of his art, and yet from some defect in material, or some other cause, beyond the detection of ordinary caution and care, may have failed to altogether cure the defect. The question of negligence in the mechanic, if material at all, was for the jury, upon the indeterminate fact presented by the hypothesis of the charge.
The question remains, whether, if the mechanic charged with repairing the engine was negligent in failing to remedy the defect, the defendant is liable for the injury alleged to have resulted therefrom to the plaintiff. This question will arise upon another trial, and must be decided. Is a railroad responsible to one of its servants, employed on a locomotive for an injury occasioned by the negligence of others employed in its machine shop ?
This court has twice decided that, “ when two persons are employed by a common employer in the same general business, and one of them is injured by the negligence of the other, the employer is not responsible therefor.”— Cook & Scott v. Parham, 24 Ala. 21 ; Walker v. Bolling, 22 Ala. 294. Of this doctrine it is said in the former case, that “ it is too well established, both upon English and American authority, to be now controverted.’ ’ The English authorities, without exception, support this ruling, and Judge Bedfield, in whose mind some difficulty as to its justice and policy was produced by the reasoning of a Scotch judge, withdraws serious objection to it if taken with the qualification prescribed in Wiggett v. Fox, 86 Eng. Law & Eq. 486; 1 Redfield on Railways, 525, § 5, No. 15. That qualification is, that the master is answerable that the servants shall be persons of ordinary skill and care. That qualification has been twice announced in this state. The precise shape of its statement is, that it is the master’s
Finding the question a res adjudícala in this court, and the rule thus supported by authority, we might here stop the discussion of the- subject, but it will perhaps be more satisfactory to notice the meagre array of adverse authority. In Scotland, the rule is the opposite of that which prevails in England. That rule imposes upon the master a duty to his servant, not only of furnishing “good and sufficient machinery”, but of having “ all acts by others, whom he employs, done properly and carefully”. — -See Dixon v. Ranken, in the Court of Quarter Sessions, i American Railway Cases, 569. In point of authority, we must prefer the adjudications of the English to the Scotch courts, if their reasons were in equilibrium; but on account of the reasoning and principle, which underlie the English rule, we regard it as much more consonant with justice and public policy than the Scotch rule, which is built up upon the idea of a partial absolution of a servant from the risks incident, in the very nature of things, to his employment. In Ohio and Kentucky, the courts have engrafted upon the rule prevalent in England, and in most of our States an exception of the cases where the injured servant was subordinate in grade to, and subject to the authority of the servant from whose negligence the injury resulted. — L. M. R. Co v. Stevens, 20 Ohio, 415; L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Collins, 5 American Law Reg. 265; S. C, 1 Redfield on Railways,. 527, n. Judge Redfield, in a note to his work on Railways, (1 Vol. 532), remarks in reference to that rule, that he should regard it as more salutary than the present, but admits that the general current of authority is in the opposite direction; yet, in a previous note, p. 525, the learned author had said that there seemed to be no serious objection to the English rule, with the qualification stated in Wiggett v. Fox, 36 E. L. & E. 486.
In Wisconsin, the distinctions made in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, are repudiated, and the court boldly confiding in its own convictions with the encouragement given by the Scotch authority, applies the doctrine of respondeat superior to the railroad company, one of whose servants had been injured by the negligence of another. — Chamberlain v. M. & M. R. R. Co., 11 Wis. 238. Sendder v. Woodbridge, Kelly’s (Ga.) R. 195, is not authority against the English rule, which, as we have seen, is adopted in. this State. On the contrary, it recognises the rule, but establishes, upon principles of humanity and of policy peculiar to the state of slavery, an exception of cases of injury to slaves.
The proposition, which bases the liability on the superiority of grade of the negligent servant, and the subordination to him of the injured servant, is, in our judgment, not founded in adequate reason. It can make no difference to the breakman whether he is injured by the carelessness of another breakman, in some remote part of the train, or of the engineer or conductor, nor can it make any difference whether a fireman is injured by the negligence of the engineer who directs him, or of the machinist who is charged with fitting the engine for the road. Protection is equally difficult to the injured party in all of the cases. There can be no reason for distinction in the nature of the employer’s duty, dependent upon the relation of the injured and negligent parties. The employer’s obligation to his servant in reference to fellow servants must be the same in all the cases. If the corporation is regarded by the law as present, and doing what its servant does in one case, it should be so regarded in every other; qui facit per alium facit per se, can be applied with no greater propriety in one case than another.
The maxim, respondeat superior, applied in favor of a servant injured by a fellow servant in Priestly v. Fowler,
Besides, there is a principle of public policy which underlies the rule. The tendency of the rule is to quicken the zeal and vigilance of servants, to prevent the negligence of their fellow servants, and avoid the consequences of it. The doctrine of respondeat superior rests upon principles of public policy which have no application here. Indeed, the rule of policy is reversed. The safety of the public, which must trust to the employees of railroads, is best consulted by impressing upon each, that his own interest is inseparably blended with the safety of the passengers; and he is best stimulated to the utmost effort to prevent negligence in others, and obviate their destructive consequences by the knowledge that, for injury sustained, he has no redress save against the wrong doer. He would be an unwise guardian of the public weal, who would relinquish any guaranty, however slight, of the fidelity and diligence of those agents, who, beyond the sight of their employers, guide the perilous and powerful machinery of railroad transportation. It is impossible for those who represent
We conclude that the second charge was erroneous, in deducing the liability of the defendant from the failure of its servants to effectually repair the engine and remedy a known defect, although there may have been no want of proper care and diligence on the part of the defendant.
Judge, J., thinks the entire charge unobjectionable ; the other judges regard it as objectionable for the reason above stated. To the qualifications of the first charge given upon defendant’s request, there can be no objection, unless it be understood to affirm what is objected to in the charge last above noticed.
The second charge requested by the defendant, involves a question of pleading, which we do not decide, because it can be obviated on another trial.
The court erred in the refusal of the third and fourth charges requested by the defendant; it should have given them both.
Eeversed and remanded.