Republic Iron & Steel Co. v. Woody
Republic Iron & Steel Co. v. Woody
Opinion of the Court
All other counts of the complaint having been eliminated, the court submitted the case to the jury on the issues made by the second, fifth, eighth, and ninth counts, defendant’s general denial, and the plea of the statute of limitation, about which last no question is raised on this appeal. The case proceeded in all the aspects presented by these counts upon the alleged negligence of one Black while in the exercise of superintendence Variations in the counts need not be noticed, for the gist of all of them is that defendant’s superintendent failed to warn or instruct plaintiff, who was young and inexperienced, in reference to the danger of the business in which he was engaged.
Conceding that everything else was proved according to plaintiff’s contention, we are unable to see that any instruction in reference to the nature of the business in which he engaged and which defendant’s superintendent was in duty bound to give would have helped plaintiff to avoid the casualty which caused his hurt; that is to say, the failure to instruct does not appear to have had any causal connection with plaintiff’s injury. In some respects the facts were not clearly developed, but, as we read the record, they were as follows :■ Plaintiff had been employed for two or three years as a common laborer about defendant’s furnace. A few days before his injury he had been put to work at dumping slag, a work he had not previously done. At the furnace molten slag was poured into hot-pots, and carried thence to the dump, which was about a mile away. These hot-pots were small cars made of steel and drawn by a small locomotive. At the dump, doors, said by the witness to be about 12 inches in diameter, were opened, and the slag flowed out upon the dump. Plaintiff, standing upon the ground or dump, as we gather, was engaged in an effort to open the door of a hot-pot by knocking
The master’s obligation is to give his inexperienced servant such instructions in regard to the latent dangers of his employment, if we may so speak of those dangers which an inexperienced employee may be presumed not to appreciate, as will enable him to avoid, as far as due care may, injury while in the performance of the duties assigned to him. The master is not required to forewarn or instruct his servant in respect to special dangers which cannot arise without negligence on the part of fellow servants. — 1 Labatt, § 236. By accepting his employment a servant, though a minor and inexperienced, assumes the risk of injury from the negligence of fellow servants and those dangers neces
Nor can defendant’s liability be Avorked out on the theory that the superintendent, Black, was negligent in failing to warn plaintiff of the fact that the particular hot-pot had been negligently loaded, and that there Avas danger that it might explode. This, on these considerations : Black had nothing to do immediately Avith loading slag into hot-pots. That Avas committed to the care of others. Nor did he know that the particular hot-pot had been negligently loaded. Or, if plaintiff would push the inquiry one step further back and beyond the negligence involved in loading the hot-pot, then, conceding that the conflict between plaintiff’s testimony and that of Black was such as to make it a question for the jury whether Black had anything to do Avith the wetting, Avashing, or cooling of hot-pots in general, it seems clear on the uncontradicted testimony that he had no knowledge of the fact that water had been left in this hot-pot when it Avas washed or cooled, or that it contained water when loaded. And so the appellee, seeking to sustain his recovery on the complaint as he framed it, appears to appreciate the fact that his version of the proof relegates him to the proposition that Black in the exercise of the superintendence committed to him ought to have warned plaintiff of a
Reversed and remanded.
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