Pooschke v. Union Pacific Railroad

This is an action for personal injuries brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 USCA § 51 et seq. Plaintiff recovered a verdict for $125,000 upon which judgment was entered, and defendant appeals.

Plaintiff was the operator of a locomotive crane, i.e., a crane erected upon a railroad car which could move under its own power. He was unloading ballast from a gondola car. Smoke came out of the crane machinery. Plaintiff went from his operator’s cab to learn what caused the smoke, the moving clutch caught his pants, his leg was drawn into the moving machinery and injured.

I

The ease…