Facts
The plaintiff in this particular case sued the defendant, his employer, for injuries sustained while working and was awarded two thousand five hundred dollars for damages. The defendant specialized in the transport business, and he used to transport Texan steers. On the day the plaintiff was injured, there was a train accident that damaged one of the defendant’s cars, making steers escape. The defendant then summoned a group of his workers, and the plaintiff was a member of the group.
The workers were supposed to recover steers, which had escaped, but in the recovery process, one of the steers injured the plaintiff making him sue his employer. The employer, however, maintained that the plaintiff had full knowledge that the steer, which injured him, was wild, vicious, and very dangerous. Being bruised in the train accident only heightened these dangerous tendencies in the steer. In addition, the defendant also claimed that the steer that injured the plaintiff was a Texan steer, which is known to be naturally wild, vicious, and very dangerous.
Issue
On the other hand, the plaintiff claimed that he had no knowledge that the steer was naturally dangerous, and his supervisor did not warn him of the potential danger it posed to him. This is what made the plaintiff sue his employer. The circuit court awarded the plaintiff two thousand five hundred dollars in damages. However, the defendant appealed against this ruling in the St. Louis Court of Appeals, and the judges in the court of appeal still upheld the same ruling.
But one of the judges in the court of appeal maintained that the decision made by the circuit court contradicted some of its earlier rulings, and this decision also violated previous rulings of the court of appeals. The court of appeals then took over the case and justified the rehearing of the case based on section six of the 1884 amendment and article six of the constitution that gave it the power to rehear cases appealed through the ordinary process.
Rule
The plaintiff then filed a case that sought to deter the St. Louis Court of Appeal from rehearing the case. The plaintiff sought to deter the rehearing of this particular case arguing that an analysis of this case indicates that the conflicts in terms of ruling that were cited by the court of appeal judge do not actually exist.
However, the case filed by the plaintiff to deter the rehearing was overruled by the court of appeals because the authority of the court of appeal in hearing such cases is not based on whether there are real conflicts in a case, but the decision to rehear a case solely depends on the fact that one of the judges of the court of appeals perceived existence of a conflict (Statsky and Wernet Jr., 5).
Conclusion
The court of appeal maintained that even if it is satisfied that there is no conflict, it cannot throw away the case because the constitution gives it the right to rehear cases under such circumstances and issue a ruling, in accordance with the ordinary appellate process. In this particular case, the plaintiff sought to stop the court of appeal from rehearing a case by claiming that the conflict of ruling that made one of the judges of the court of appeal rule otherwise, did not exist. However, the defendant prevailed in getting his appeal because the court of appeal clearly stated that the rehearing of a case is based on the fact that one of the judges differed with the ruling.
Works Cited
Statsky, William, and John Wernet Jr. Case Analysis and Fundamentals of Legal Writing. St. Paul: West Publ. Co, 2004. Print.