Mart

This appeal is from a judgment entered on a verdict awarding damages to plaintiff Donald A. Mart for personal injuries alleged to have been suffered by him through the negligence of defendants-appellants. Plaintiff-respondent was a laborer employed by M. W. Brown, a highway contractor, then engaged in building a county road in southwestern Shasta County. The work required that a seal coat of oil be applied to the road surface, after which sand was to be spread over the oil. For the performance of this work appellants rented to Brown a dump truck and furnished a driver for its operation. When the truck arrived at the site of the work, Brown attached a gasoline-driven sand spreader to the tailgate of the truck. As a means of getting the sand into the spreader Brown cut a hole about a foot square in the tailgate. Brown’s plan of operation contemplated that sand would move through the hole into the hopper of the spreader; and to facilitate and regulate the supply of sand one or two men with hand shovels would work in the truck near the tailgate, shoveling sand through the hole. There was much evidence that this was a common and accepted method of doing the work. The operation also…