North Chicago Rolling Mill Co. v. Johnson

Citations

• 114 Ill. 57
• 29 N.E. 186
• 1885 Ill. LEXIS 573

Syllabus

<p>1. Negligence—master and servant—duty of the former to use proper precautions for the safety of the latter—as, in the unloading of cars, to avoid collisions, etc. In an action to recover for personal injuries resulting from alleged negligence, it appeared the defendant company put the plaintiff and others of its servants to work unloading a railroad freight car standing on a spur of a side-track having connection with other tracks only at one end, and being a track not used for passing trains, and there being nothing to lead the laborers to believe the car they were unloading would be disturbed, and while so engaged the loaded car was violently struck by other cars which became detached from an engine used in switching cars in the yard, whereby the plaintiff was injured.” It was held, that it was the duty of the defendant not to have brought on this peril without timely notice to the laborers so engaged; that either the cars ought not to have been brought into the position they were, without notice, or it should have been first ascertained that no danger to the laborers could result therefrom, and that the failure to do so was gross negligence.</p> <p>2. The attempt to bring a train of cars on the switch to a point where the defendant’s servants were engaged in unloading a car, where the grade was a descending one, without notice to them, or any signal by the bell or whistle of the engine of the approach on such track, and.without having the moving cars under control by proper and sufficient couplings and brakes attached, the yard-master knowing that men were engaged all around the car they were unloading, was gross negligence on the part of the defendant.</p> <p>3. Same—as to whose duty it was to see that the appliances for controlling the moving ears were in proper order, etc. In such an action, where the injury resulted from the uncoupling of certain cars in a train being switched in the defendant’s yard, so that they could not be controlled by the engine, and