Gordon v. Roberts

JAMES, J.

Judgment was entered herein in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendants in the sum of $1,237 as damages which the jury fixed as the amount of compensation

[77]

awarded to the plaintiff for personal injuries suffered by reason of the alleged negligence of the defendants. There was a motion for a new trial made on behalf of the defendants Lankershim and Biorci, which motion was denied. This appeal was then taken by said defendants from the judgment as entered, and from the order denying them a new trial.

The record of the trial is presented by bill of exceptions. The facts as they appear to have been established by competent evidence introduced on behalf of the plaintiff, are as follows : At the date when the alleged injuries were suffered by the plaintiff, a business building was being erected at the corner of Main and Fourth Streets, in the city of Los Angeles, for the appellant Lankershim. The building had been in the main completed. Appellant Biorci was employed by Lanker-shim, or his authorized agent, to decorate the corridor on the ground floor which was entered from the Main Street side. The sidewalk was already laid in front of the building. Plaintiff, on the day in question, was standing on the sidewalk several feet distant from the line of the building, waiting to take a trolley car to Pasadena. A painter in the employ of Biorci was at work on a tall trestle near the entrance by which the plaintiff was standing. It became necessary to move the trestle, and several men, who were delegated for that purpose by a contractor doing the general work of the building, came to do the work. While engaged in this operation the trestle was tipped toward the street and either the end of it, or a plank therefrom, fell and struck the plaintiff on the shoulder, throwing him to the sidewalk and inflicting the injuries on account of which he afterward sued. Biorci at that time was working at a point in the corridor about one hundred feet from the trestle toward the interior of the building." The one man who had been at work upon the trestle remained there during the operation of moving and was himself thrown down. It was agreed in the contract made by Biorci with the owner of the building that the scaffolding and the moving thereof should be attended to by the owner; or, in other words, that the owner should furnish men from the staff of the contractor to move it. The defendants all claimed that there was an absence of negligence on their part, and it was further claimed by the appellant Lankershim in defense that the negligence, if any, which was committed.producing injury to the plaintiff, was the negligence of persons who were, with respect