Johnny L. Southern, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Intervenor-Appellee v. Plumb Tools, a Division of O'Ames Corporation

This case involves a suit against a third-party tortfeasor by an employee injured on the job. On appeal we hold that the district court erred, under Alabama law, by refusing to limit the participation at trial of the intervening workmen’s compensation carrier and by allowing the jury to learn that the employee had received workmen’s compensation benefits, and that such was not harmless error.

The appellant, Johnny L. Southern, was injured on his job as a carpenter when a shard of metal flew off a hammer and blinded him in his right eye. His employer’s workmen’s compensation carrier, Liberty…