Unlucky Thirteen

UNLUCKY     THIRTEEN.

LELLIS HIT BY THIRTEEN PIECES 

OF TIMBER

________

While Standing on Thirteenth Tie.--

Estate Fails to Recover From Thirteen Men, the Jury and Judge.

the suit of Cecilia R. Lellis vs. the Michigan Central and Ann Arbor roads was on trial in the circuit court Thursday. The plaintiff brought the suit as administrator of the estate of Stephen Lellis to recover $20,000 damages for his death Mar. 19, 1896, in the Michigan Central yards in Detroit. The declaration alleges that Stephen Lellis was a yard brakeman or switchman. that on the day mentioned while he was attending to his duties he was struck by 13 pieces of timber that fell from a car of lumber. The car had been received from the Ann Arbor road and was destined for Black Rock, N.Y. It is charged that the stakes that held the mumber on the car, did not fill the sockets for their receptio and were not sufficient. The witnesses sworn this morning were Cecilla R. Lellis, William O. Bellaire and W. H. Conat. Bellaire testified that he removed the mumber fro Lellis who died a few minutes later. Conat was a fellow brakeman who testified to the condition of the stakes on the car at the time of the accident.

The jury in the case was composed of George M. Ruthruff, Christian J. Kelly, William Hay, Walter Lathrop, John J. Jones, William Tuttle, Hudson Larzelier, Edward Burke, John Burkheiser, Christopher Lyman, George Spathelf, Jr., and Henry Fullengton. Eminent counsel are conierned in the case. Michael J. Lehman and Hon. Tom Navin represented the plaintiff and Lawrence and Butterfield, T.W. Whitney and T. D. Kearney appeared for the defendant.

This afternoon Judge Kinne took the case away from the jury and directed them to find a verdict of no cause of action. The defendants claimed that the car had been inspected and even if it had not been it was a case of the negligence of a fellow employee and the railroad companies were therefore not liable.

Case No. 11, Henry Matthews vs. Andrew McHenry, an appeal case from York, was then taken up and a jury impaneled.