Majors v. Allen Mfg. Co.
Majors v. Allen Mfg. Co.
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff’s son was drowned in a pond on the yard of the mill of the defendant company while in the employ of the defendant company as water boy.. His body was found in the pond. How it got there, no one knows. A plankway 20 inches wide, unprovided with guards, furnished access to a flowing well, or pipe, standing out in the middle of the pond, and the supposition is that he fell from this plankway. There were other less dangerous places where he might have gotten the water which he was to carry to the workmen on the yard, but the workmen preferred the water from this well, as it was cooler. The petition lays the damages at $8,000, without specification of whether plaintiff claims in his own right for his mental suffering and the loss of the services of the boy, or in right of the boy for the sufferings of the boy.
One of the contentions of defendant is that the boy was past 14, and that therefore the suit should have been brought under the Employers’ Liability Act (Act No. 20 of 1914). We fincj. it unnecessary to go into that question, as we find that plaintiff cannot in any event recover.
Learned counsel for plaintiff argue that this child labor law is a prohibitory' law, and that “estoppel cannot be invoked to impair the force and effect of a prohibitory law,” citing Ins. Co. v. Harbor Protection, 37 La. Ann. 236, and Sucn. of Jacobs, 104 La. 447, 29 South. 241. In the first of these cases, a corporation had been sought to be formed by a number of corporations joining together as incorporators; and the suit was by one of those corporations to have the nullity of the attempted incorporation decreed for the reason that such a thing as a corporation being composed of other corpora
The judgment dismissing the suit is affirmed, at plaintiff’s cost.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- MAJORS v. ALLEN MFG. CO.
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- 1 case
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- Syllabus
- (Syllabus by Editorial Staff.) 1. Death An employé who solicited employment for a son under 14 as water boy, representing him to be about 15 years old, is estopped to recover from the employer for the boy’s death in service on ground that the occupation was dangerous and the employment of the boy under 14 in violation of the Child Labor Law (Act No. 801 of 1908). 2. Mastek and Servant A boy apparently 15 years old employed to carry water need not be warned by the employer against the danger of falling into an open pond, which is obvious to him. 3. Death &wkey;>77 — Action for Suffering of Ohild — Right to Recover. A father suing his son’s employer for the boy’s death by drowning in service, and who shows merely that the dead body was found in a pond on the employer’s premises a few hours after he had been seen alive, cannot recover for the suffering of the child.