Holland-Blow Stave Co. v. Spencer
Holland-Blow Stave Co. v. Spencer
Opinion of the Court
.The questions presented by the assignments of error predicated on the refusal of the affirmative charge to the defendant as to the first and second counts of the complaint are: (1) Was the scaffold in question, and which fell and injured the *228 plaintiff, a part of the defendant’s “ways, works, machinery, or plant connected with, or used in the business-of, the master,” within the meaning of subdivision 1 of section 3910 of the Code? and (2) was this scaffold a place within the common-law rule that imposes on the master the nondelegable duty of furnishing the servant a safe place to do his work? , ..
The plaintiff at the time of his injury was engaged in assisting one Thompson, a carpenter and fellow servant of the plaintiff in making repairs on one of the defendant’s buildings; the repair work consisting of nailing strips of lumber over the cracks in the side of the building, and incident to his work .Thompson, who was directed by Eoley, the superintendent of the plant, to do the work, and who, as some of the evidence tended to show, was “the boss of this job,” constructed a temporary scaffold along the side of the building, from materials furnished by the defendant, using for the girders or crosspieces on which the floor of the scaffold rested ordinary flooring. 3%x% inches, which were fastened at one end to the building and at the other to upright scantling, using for the flooring of the scaffold 2xl0’s, which were placed across the 3%x%-inch girders. The plaintiff’s evidence tends to show that, after Thompson had constructed the scaffold, the plaintiff was sent by Eoley to assist Thompson in carrying on the work of stripping the building, and after the lumber to be used in the work of stripping the building had been placed upon the scaffold, and while the plaintiff and Thompson were on the scaffold engaged in the work, the scaffold fell and injured the plaintiff. The evidence tends to show that the scaffold was caused to fall from one or the other of three causes — that the girders were not securely fastened to the building, or that the scaffold was overloaded with the lumber that -was placed upon it, or that the lumber used for the girders between the uprights and the building was not strong enough for such use.
The evidence is without conflict that the scaffold was the creation of Thompson, without any direction or suggestion from the defendant’s superintendent, Eoley, and that Eoley had no knowledge of its existence until it fell and injured the plaintiff, and that the scaffold was constructed for the sole purpose of being used in the work of repairing this building. There is no evidence showing, or tending to show, that the defendant or its superintendent undertook to furnish thiis scaffold as a finished utility or appliance for use in this work.
The following excerpt from the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Sixth District, speaking through Lurton, J. (late Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States), clearly states the law applicable to the case in hand:
“There is a line of cases holding that when the employer furnishes suitable materials, and the workmen themselves construct a scaffolding or staging as a part of the work which they undertake to perform, and build it according to their own judgment, the employer is not liable for an injury to one of their own number, sustained in the subsequent use' of the structure, in consequence of negligence in construction. The erection and re-erection of such a staging as the work requiring its use progresses, being itself a part of the very work which the employs are to do, takes it without the general rulé in respect to the duty of the master to exercise reasonable care to furnish a reasonably safe place and appliances. Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, vol. 20, p. 82; Kimmer v. Weber, 151 N. Y. 417, 421, 45 N. E. 860, 56 Am. St. Rep. 630; Armour v. Hahn, 111 U. S. 313, 4 Sup. Ct. 433, 28 L. Ed. 440; Killea v. Faxon, 125 Mass. 485. But the rule is quite otherwise if the employer himself undertake to furnish such scaffolding for the men who are to work thereon. In such case the duty is one of those positive duties of the master toward the servant, which cannot be discharged by the substitution of a competent agent. The act or service to be done is that of furnishing a reasonably. safe place or appliance, and negligence in the doing of such a service is the negligence of the master, without regard to the rank of different employes. Conner v. Pioneer Co. (C. C.) 29 Fed. 629; McNamara v. MacDonough, 102 Cal. 575, 36 Pac. 941; Coughtry v. Globe Woolen Co., 56 N. Y. 124, 15 Am. Rep. 387; Kimmer v. Weber, 151 N. Y. 417, 45 N. E. 860, 56 Am. St. Rep. 630; Bowen v. C., B. & K. C. Ry., 95 Mo. 268, 8 S. W. 230; Mulchey v. Methodist Society, 125 Mass. 487; C. & A. R. Co. v. Maroney, 170 Ill. 520, 48 N. E. 953. 62 Am. St. Rep. 396; Behm v. Armour, 58 Wis. 1, 15 N. W. 806: Austin Mfg. Co. v. Johnson, 89 Fed. 677, 32 C. C. A. 309; Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, vol. 20, p. 81; Labatt, Master & Servant, 614 et seq.” *229 Chambers v. American Tin Plate Co., 129 Fed. 562, 64 C. C. A. 130.
See, also, 1 Bailey, Personal Inj. *198; Labatt, Master & Servant, §§ 1445-1548; Noonan v. Foley, 217 Mass. 566, 105 N. E. 558, L. R. A. 1915F, 1036; Burns v. Washburn, 160 Mass. 457, 36 N. E. 199; Adasken v. Gilbert, 165 Mass. 443, 43 N. E. 199.
Reversed and remanded.
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