Greenwald, Inc. v. McLaughlin

Bonn, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. T.his appeal is by a defendant from a judgment for damages from personal injuries sustained by a government inspector of meat in a fall while escaping from a steer at large in a slaughter house. Review is sought of the overruling of a demurrer to the declaration, of the refusal to direct a verdict for the defendant, and of the granting of an instruction prayed by the plaintiff. The declaration first specifically alleged acts of negligence in making it possible for the steer to be free, and followed this with an allegation in a new paragraph of negligence generally as a cause of the injury: “That the aforesaid injuries and damages suffered by him were caused solely and exclusively by the negligence and carelessness of the defendant, its servants and agents, and without any negligence or want of care on.the part of the plaintiff.” And the appellant contends in support of its demurrer that this general allega’ tion enlarged the ground of recovery without affording the defendant notice and warning of the case it might have to meet.

Jeter v. Schwind Quarry Co., 97 Md. 696 , 55 A. 366 ; Keyser v. Richards, 148 Md. 669, 677, 681 , 130 A. 41 ; Frisch v. Baltimore, 156 Md. 310, 312 , 144 A. 478 . But this court concurs in the view of the trial court. The broad reference h> negligence at the close of the declaration, which is customary in Maryland practice, is not taken as an allegation of negligence in any respects other than, or in addition to, those more particularly alleged. Smith Co. v. Smick, 119 Md. 279, 281 , 86 A. 500 ; Joyce v. Flanigan, 111 Md. 481, 484, 492 , 74 A. 818 .

And the decisions cited in support of the appellant’s view were not to the effect that the ground of recovery, even when confined by instructions to the pleadings, was, by the added broad allegation in the plead ³⁴³ ings, left without limit as contended. White v. Parks, 154 Md. 195, 202 , 140 A. 70 ; Parr v. Peters, 159 Md. 106 . This court agrees with the conclusion of the trial court that there was legally sufficient evidence of the facts necessary to a recovery by the plaintiff. The evidence is substantially this: The plaintiff was working in a large room used for the slaughtering and the dressing of carcasses.

The floor is commonly, and necessarily, wet while the work is going on. The cattle enter from outside the building into a small inclosuro or room partitioned off in one corner, called a holding pen, and pass into a section of that pen called a knocking pen, where they are stunned, and are then hauled out into the large room for slaughtering and dressing. There are two-openings from the holding pen into- the large room. One is by a door four and a half feet high above a baseboard one foot high, opening out into the large room, used by men going in and out, and held or opened by a common form of latch with a lifting handle on the outside and a thumb latch to be pressed down on the inside.

The latch is about three and one-half feet above the floor. The other opening is from the knocking pen into the large room, and is the opening used for hauling out the stunned cattle. The door of this latter opening is raised and lowered in grooves by a chain, to- a height sufficient to permit hauling out a steer by the hind leg; the full height is not more definitely given in evidence. As the plaintiff