Squillante v. Barr

MUSSELL, J.—This is an action to recover damages for personal injuries suffered by plaintiff as the result of a fall from a truck loaded with boxed grapes. The truck had been driven up to a loading platform at the packing plant of defendant Barr Packing Company. Plaintiff was a fruit shipper and buyer and on September 8, 1950, was at the packing plant to inspect grapes which he was buying through the Barr Company. Defendant Rodney Epps, who was the foreman at the plant, was talking with the plaintiff when, he saw the truck approaching the loading platform. Epps remarked to plaintiff that these were some of the grapes he would be getting and asked plaintiff if he would like to look at them. Plaintiff stated that he would and they proceeded to the truck which had been stopped so that the bed of the truck was approximately level with and along the side of the loading platform. Defendant Allen, who was driving the truck for the owner (defendant Weber) got out of the cab on the driver’s side and proceeded along that side of the truck to the rear, where he loosened the two ropes holding the loaded boxes in place. These boxes were in 3 tiers and 11 boxes high and the total height from the bed of the truck to the top of the boxes was 6% feet. The two ropes were fastened to the front of the bed of the truck, one on each side of the cab, extended up over the outer tiers of the loaded boxes and were secured by devices on the [177]rear of the truck by which they were held taut.. Epps did not see Allen go to the rear of the truck and climbed up on a platform back of and on top of the cab where he could see the grapes in the top boxes. This platform was accessible by means of three steps attached to the bulkhead at the rear of the cab and it was not necessary to use the rope to climb up to the platform. When Epps climbed up, he put his feet on the steps and held onto the top of the bulkhead. He testified that when he had been on the platform for approximately one "minute, plaintiff attempted to follow him up; that plaintiff put his foot on the steps, took hold of the rope and when he had climbed high enough to reach the top box on the load, he grabbed the box and fell to the loading platform and then to the ground. Plaintiff testified in this connection that Epps went up on the truck first and he, plaintiff, followed; that they were on top of the load for a while inspecting the grapes and after Epps had climbed down, he, plaintiff, started to come down, holding himself on the rope; that when he was about the middle of the second step, “down I went, and it is all I remember.”

Plaintiff had been in the grape business for 40 years and had been up on a similar truck before. He admitted that he knew that the ropes had to be loosened before the grapes were unloaded and that he made no attempt to see where the driver of the truck was before he attempted to go up on the truck and did not see Allen leave the truck.