Simmons v. Chicago & Tomah Railroad

Citations

• 110 Ill. 340

Syllabus

<p>1. Pbactice—excluding all the plaintiff’a evidence—directing a verdict for the defendant. Although there may be some evidence tending to support the plaintiff’s case, yet where the evidence given at the trial, with all inferences that the jury could justifiably draw from it, is so far insufficient to support a verdict for the plaintiff that such a verdict, if returned, must be set aside, the court is not bound to submit the case to the jury, but may direct a verdict for the defendant.</p> <p>2. Negligence—as between master and servant—want of proper care on the part of the latter. While there is an implied contract betwéen employer and employe that the former shall provide suitable means, appliances and instrumentalities with which to perform the labors required of the latter, and also that the latter shall be advised by the former of all dangers incident to the service of which the latter is not cognizant, yet the failure of the employer in this regard furnishes no excuse for the conduct of an employe who voluntarily incurs a known danger.</p> <p>3. If a servant, knowing the hazards of his employment, as the business is conducted, is injured while engaged therein, he can not maintain an action against the master for the injury merely on the ground that there was a safer mode in which the business might have been conducted, the adoption of which would have prevented the injury.</p> <p>4. In this case, an employe of a railroad company was killed by the falling of a bank of earth which he was engaged in excavating. His administrator brought suit for damages, against the company, on the alleged ground of a want of proper care on the part of the agents of the company in charge of the work, in directing the manner in which it should be done. The facts, as shown by the testimony, were substantially these: A number of laborers were engaged in excavating a’hill, under the direction of a foreman. The bank, at the point where the accident occurred, was sixteen to twenty fe