Plyler v. Pacific Portland Cement Co.

BUCKLES, J. This is an action for personal injuries suffered by plaintiff while in defendant’s employ. The case was tried with a jury, and a verdict rendered for plaintiff for the sum of $2,500. Judgment was rendered accordingly, and the appeal is from the judgment.

The appellant states at the beginning of his closing brief that “the only question presented on this appeal is: Does [280]section 625 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended March 6, 1905 (Stats. 1905, p. 56, c. 62), and which requires a jury to give proper reasons for its verdict, impose a mandatory duty upon the trial judge to submit issues and questions of fact to the jury, whenever requested to do so by either party ? ’ ’ There are other errors alleged as having taken place at the trial, but as appellant relies only on the one that is the refusal of the court to direct the jury to find on certain special issues, we will consider no other.

The defendant -owns and operates a large plant in Solano county for the manufacture of cement, and the plaintiff was a laborer employed in the -buildings and about the said plant. On June 22, 1904, plaintiff was directed, as a part of his duty, to go to a certain elevated platform in the upper part of one of the buildings to perform certain work, the character of which he did not know until his arrival at said platform. “The -only means of ascending to, and descending from, said platform was to pass over and across a plank walk about fifteen feet long and three feet wide, and extending and suspended over a cement floor nineteen feet below said walk, thence up a ladder standing perpendicularly, about ten feet long, to said platform; that said walk had no rails, guard, or protection of any kind on either side thereof.” The complaint then alleges the unsafeness of said platform, walk, and means of ascending and descending, etc., and then continues: “And immediately after plaintiff had arrived at said platform, and before being informed of the exact character of the work he was to perform, and while plaintiff was in the exercise -of all due care and skill, and without any negligence on his part, defendant carelessly and negligently caused and suffered a great quantity of dense smoke to arise and -envelop the space in and about said plank walk and said ladder and platform and the space in and about which plaintiff was standing, the- said smoke rendering said space .... dark and impenetrable to sight, and making it impossible for plaintiff to see, and causing partial suffocation of plaintiff and rendering it dangerous to his life to remain on said platform; that plaintiff, by reason of said darkness and danger occasioned by said smoke, endeavored to descend from said platform,- and did descend said ladder and was in the act of stepping on said plank walk to escape, said danger from said smoke,