Hansen v. Sierra & San Francisco Power Co.

RICHARDS, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment in plaintiff’s favor and from an order denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial.

The action was one for damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by the plaintiff while in the employ of the defendant, and while engaged as a helper to the driver of a motor truck used by the defendant in hauling electric power poles from its yards at San Martin in Santa Clara County to points along its power line on the Monterey road. The action was tried by the court sitting without a jury. The findings of the court set forth the details of the accident in which plaintiff received his injuries substantially as follows: On and prior to the fifteenth day of April, 1912, the plaintiff was employed by the defendant as helper to a truck-driver in and about the construction of its power lines in the above region, and subject to the orders of said truck-driver, and also to the orders of the yard foreman of said defendant at San Martin. On said last-named day these three employees of the defendant were engaged in loading a large heavy electric power-line pole on to a certain wagon or truck of the defendant by means of a wooden horse, so placed that one end of a large and heavy plank or skid rested on the end of said wooden horse, the other end of said plank resting upon the ground, in order that said electric-line pole could be rolled or pulled up the said plank and thence on to said wagon or truck. While so engaged in loading said pole upon said truck, the plaintiff was proceeding under the direction of his fellow-employees to so place a block under the legs of said wooden horse as to raise the height of said horse, so that the end of the plank or skid resting on the same would be as high as the bed of said truck or wagon, and while the plaintiff was so engaged his fellow-employees lifted or raised said wooden horse so high that the end of said plank or skid slipped off the end thereof and fell upon the plaintiff, causing the injuries for which this action was brought. The court

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further found that said wooden horse was not a fit and proper tool for use for the purposes for which it was being used at the time of said injury, for the reason that it had no cleats bolted or fastened on the end thereof which would have prevented the said plank or skid from slipping from it, and that such cleats as had theretofore been thereon were broken and worn off by usage; and also that the notch in the end of said wooden horse designed to hold said plank or skid in place was worn away, and that such imperfect and outworn condition of said appliances was well known to the defendant and was not known to the plaintiff prior to and at the time of said injury.