103 Mo. App. 683 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1903
— Respondents’ son, Walter Rogers, was killed while performing his duty as an employee of the appellant company and this action was brought by the parents for the damages sustained by his death, which is ascribed in the petition to negligence on the part of the appellant. The fatal’accident was of a singular kind, as will appear from a statement of the facts, so far as they are known. The printing company did business in a four-story building on the southwest corner of Third and Yine streets in the city of St. Louis. Between the third and fourth stories, on the north side of the building, were two flights of stairs of ten steps each, the lower flight rising from the third story to a platform or landing midway between the two stories and the other flight rising to the fourth story. The steps were wide enough and of low height. On the right hand in ascending, left hand in descending, was a banister. It curved at the platform on an arc whose chord was nine inches. The landing platform between the two stories was, as we gather, about seven feet wide and more than eight feet long. A window in the north wall of the building occupied the middle space of that part of the wall across which the platform extended. This window was a little over four feet wide and each sash (the upper and lower) had two panes of glass in it about two feet wide. Only two feet and seven inches of the window projected above the platform, the other eight feet extending below. The window was arched at the top and the arch was, of course, narrower toward its center than at the sides. The banister running from the fourth story to the landing would, if prolonged, have struck the
.During the afternoon of May 16, 1901, Walter Rogers, then a lad thirteen years old, was sent to the fourth story of the building and after dispatching his errand, started to return to the third story. When next' seen he was in the air outside the building, having fallen through the east pane of the window at the landing, whence he dropped into the middle of Yine street and was killed. He was seen in his descent by a workman engaged in a building across the street. The negligence charged against 'the defendant was failing to guard and protect the window above the stair landing, which is alleged to have been dangerous in its unguarded state.
One position assumed by the appellant is that the boy Walter lost his hold while sliding down the rail of the banister, slipped off and plunged through the window at the foot. On this assumption he is said to have caused his death by his own negligence. There is testimony that he and other boys who worked on the premises were in the habit of half sitting, half lying on the railing with their heads leaned slightly outside of it and their feet inside and sliding down, and that they had been warned against the prank. There is no positive and very slight circumstantial evidence that at the time Walter was killed he slid down the banister. A mark was found on the platform, beginning a few inches from the window and running to the edge of the platform, which was thought to have been scraped by the boy’s heel, and to show he had slipped off the banister; but the inference could as well be drawn that he had slipped from the stairs to the landing and made the mark. An
Another defense relied on is that the appellant was guilty of no negligence in failing to guard the portion of the window which projected above the landing — that the risk of a servant, or other person having business on the premises, falling through the window was so remote as to excuse the appellant from anticipating such an event and taking precautions against it. To one not familiar from observation with the position of the window ahd the landing, the occurrence of an accident like the one that befell the deceased would appear from the evidence to be extremely improbable; and we might be inclined to accede to the appellant’s contention on this point but for certain facts disclosed by the testimony. Before stating them, let us revert for a moment, to elementary principles in order to better appreciate the legal force of the facts.. If an injury occurs which a prudent man, all the circumstances considered, would- have been unlikely to anticipate, it is referable to the category of inevitable accidents. Graney v. Railroad, 157 Mo. 666; Fuchs v. St. Louis, 167 Mo. 620. It is axiomatic that whether a man must take precautions to prevent injury to others in order that he may stand exonerated from blame for an injury if one happens, depends on his previous knowledge of facts adapted to excite in a prudent mind an apprehension of the harmful event transpiring. Smith v. Car Co., 60 Mich. 501, 1 Am. St. 542; Bowen v. Railroad, 95 Mo. 268. One form in which the rule has been laid down is that a person is guilty of no want of ordinary care, and hence, is not responsible for an injury, if he behaves,’ everything considered, as men of prudence would have behaved. Hogan v. Railroad, 150 Mo. loc. cit. 49. Appellant’s counsel insist that a man of common prudence would never have thought of a person falling, by any mischance, through the window above the platform. But this argument is prostrated in the present case by testimony which shows that prior
‘ ‘ Q. During the time that you were there had any accident of this nature ever happened in that building? A. Not of that kind.
“Q. I mean of anybody falling out of the top of one of those windows? A. There was an accident from the window when the firm moved into the building.
“Q. I mean while Meyerson was running the establishment? Did any employee ever fall from the platform through one of those windows? A. No, sir.
“Q. You made a statement a few minutes ago; I don’t want to have any misunderstanding about it, that there had been an accident when you were moving in? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. Was that anything more than the fact that a crowbar fell out of the window? A. ' One of the laborers moving a press fell out with the crowbar.
“Q. While the laborers were moving into the building some one with a crowbar fell out of the window? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. And that laborer was not even working for Mr. Meyerson? A. I don’t know.”
Furthermore, Mr. Meyerson swore the. boys employed in the establishment were in the habit of sliding down the banister rail. Many boys had been warned many times against doing so, he said, because he knew
Was that enough to satisfy the law, or did the jury have a right to conclude the appellant was bound to guard the window in order to perform its duty to use ordinary care to prevent a casualty? To our minds it is scarcely debatable that it was. a question for the jury whether some simple precaution that would render such an accident impossible, like barring the window, ought not to have been taken by the appellant company after its officers knew one person had fallen through an unbarred window and apprehended the like misfortune to some other employee. A casualty can not be classed as a pure accident for which no one is to blame, merely because it would happen infrequently, if the danger of its occurrence was present to the mind of the party who was charged with the duty of taking care to avert the casualty, or if, by reasonable prudence, he could have known there was danger of its occurrence. An unfenced area by a street, like the one into which Beusching fell (Buesching v. St. Louis Gas Light Co., 73 Mo. 219) would not often cause death or injury; for almost all passersby would miss or avoid the hole, as thousands, had before Buesching fell into it and was killed. None the less, it was negligence to leave the place unguarded; because some one was liable to fall into it at any time, as could be readily seen. An accident properly so-called, is where the cause of the event was so unusual
Many cases have been cited by counsel in which casualties were ascribed to causes which could not have been foreseen; but none of them presents the facts most prominent in the present controversy. In Lawless v. Laclede Gas Light Co., 72 Mo. App. 679, the plaintiff, while digging a trench for the defendant, got his feet wet by water bursting into the trench from an old cistern. The water was poisonous and generated a disease in plaintiff’s system. It was held that the defendant could not have anticipated such an effect and, mere-fore, was not responsible.
In Am. Brew. Co. v. Talbot, 141 Mo. 674, malt stored in defendant’s warehouse was destroyed by the caving in of the premises on account of an unprecedented flood of the Mississippi river. That loss was plainly due to the act of God.
In Sullivan v. Railroad, 133 Mo. 1, a passenger on an open summer car, after lighting a cigar, threw; the match so that it ignited the plaintiff’s dress, burning her severely. The decision was that the railway company could not reasonably have anticipated such a mischance and was not to blame for it.
In Fuchs v. City of St. Louis, 167 Mo. 620, a sewer exploded, from what cause was not shown, although it was claimed to have been due to the presence of a large quantity of kerosene which had flowed into it. The decision was that as a sewer explosion was never known before, the city had no reason to expect one and was pot called on to take preventive measures.
In Dugan v. Champlain Co., 56 N. Y. 1, plaintiff’s intestate was drowned by slipping under a guard-rail on the deck of defendant’s boat. The hat of deceased blew off, he sprang to recover it, slipped and fell over
Without saying more, it is sufficient to state that in none of those precedents was it shown that the defendant actually anticipated such a fatality as happened on account of a similar one having happened before; but on the contrary, in all of them previous experience taught the extreme improbability of tbe misfortune. A master must furnish a servant a reasonably safe place to work; and the inference that one is remiss in that regard if he leaves small boys in his employ exposed to the danger of death by falling through a window, after he fully realizes the danger and has had one accident of the sort befall, can not be denounced as unwarranted.
Some minor criticisms which we have examined and deem undeserved, are indulged in concerning the court’s instructions. The instructions were few and clear, and, we think, presented the issues to the jury in a manner that was accurate and easily understood.
The judgment is affirmed.