Larsen v. Leonardt

TAGGART, J.

Action for damages for personal injuries. Defendant appeals from judgment for plaintiff and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

Plaintiff was a hodcarrier or brickmason’s helper in the employ of defendant, who was a contractor engaged in the erection of a large building in the city of Los Angeles. Plaintiff fell from a scaffold because of stepping upon a loose plank which was insecurely laid on the cross-beams, or putlogs, which supported the floor of the main or permanent scaffold, extending clear across the building, used by the bricklayers and their helpers in laying up the brick in the - walls of the building. When the work on the main scaffold reached a stage called “scaffold high,” temporary scaffolding, consisting of four ten-inch planks fourteen feet long, was laid upon trusses which were set upon the main scaffold, and were used by the bricklayers to stand upon while laying up the arches to the windows. This temporary scaffolding was moved from arch to arch by the bricklayers and their helpers, and the loose plank which caused plaintiff to fall was moved along with the temporary scaffolding and thrown down alongside of the floor of the main scaffold.

While the masons were on the temporary scaffold the bricklayers’ helpers continued to stand upon the main scaffold and to pass up brick and mortar to the briekmasons on the temporary scaffold. Plaintiff had been handing up brick at the end of the temporary scaffold, and was called to supply brick to the mason who was working near the center of the arch, and in attempting to pass around the end of one of the trusses, standing upon the main scaffold, so as to be able to hand up the brick from a point near the center of the temporary scaffold, stepped upon the insecure plank, which laid about a foot from the floor of the main scaffold, and was thrown to the ground and injured. It is for damages for this injury that this action was brought.

Quite a number of questions are presented upon this appeal, and as to the determination of some of them the members of this court are not all able to concur. There is one reason,

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however, which all agree requires that the judgment be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial, and that is the failure of the jury to find upon certain of the special questions which were submitted to them, with the general form of verdict. Of the twelve questions propounded but four were answered directly. The rest were answered evasively, or, in effect, by “we do not know,” or “are unable to determine. ’ ’