Williams v. Field Transportation Co.

EDMONDS, J. Willie Williams sued Field Transportation Company and J. M. Brown, its employee, for damages on account of personal injuries assertedly sustained during the loading of one of its trucks. Following verdict and judgment in favor of the corporation and Brown, a new trial was granted “upon the sole ground of the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict as to all of the issues.” The appeal is from that order.

[697]Brown, a truck driver employed by Field, was sent to the premises of Industrial Engineering Company to pick up a number of pieces of 16-inch pipe 40 feet long, each of which weighed 1,800 pounds. Upon arrival he presented his trucking order to W. E. Trimmel, the yard superintendent, and there was some conversation as to the method to be used in loading and stacking the pipe. Trimmel said that to place it in a pyramid would provide maximum safety but Brown, after a telephone conversation with his company’s dispatcher, determined to use the strip or tier method, which allowed a larger load on the truck.

Trimmel pointed out to Brown that his truck was not adequately equipped to carry the pipe in tiers because it had no stringers. Brown then went to a dunnage pile, procured some timbers and placed his truck in position for loading.

A crane stood parallel to the truck and between the truck and the pipe rack. In placing the pipe on the truck, its 30-foot boom operated in a horizontal arc. From this boom hung a cable at the end of which was a spreader bar holding load lines and lifting hooks. By means of these hooks, inserted into the ends of a pipe, it was hoisted from the pile, swung over to the truck and lowered into position. The hooks were then removed and the crane’s boom returned to the rack for another pipe.

Tag-lines or leader ropes extending from these hooks were used to guide the pipe and keep it from swinging. Williams was assigned to handle one of the tag-lines. Brown stood on the truck during the loading operations, just behind the cab. When a pipe reached the truck, Williams turned his line over to Brown who directed the pipe to rest. After it was in position for carrying, Brown pulled out the hook and handed it back to Williams. The man operating the tag-line at the other end of the pipe then released the hook under his direction, and he and Williams followed the boom as it returned to the pipe rack.

After five joints of pipe were laid in a row, Brown placed the stringers and blocking to keep them in place. Five sections were then placed in a second tier, each of which was directly on top of one of the first five. After being placed, these were also blocked and stringers laid across them. Under normal operations, the two rows would then be bound together by a chain cinched around them, but there is a conflict in the evidence as to whether this was done by Brown.