Yazoo City Transportation Co. v. Smith

Mississippi Supreme Court
Yazoo City Transportation Co. v. Smith, 78 Miss. 140 (Miss. 1900)
Calhoon

Yazoo City Transportation Co. v. Smith

Opinion of the Court

Calhoon, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Appellee engaged as a deck hand on one of appellant’s boats for' a round trip from Vicksburg to Greenwood and .back. On the return the weather became cold to a degree without precedent in this climate, and, at the landing at Silver City, the mate, by the captain’s orders, took appellee and divers other deck *147hands on shore and caused them to roll in eighteen bales of cotton which were covered with ice and snow. This work caused three fingers of one of appellee’s hands to be frostbitten, so that they had to be, and were, amputated. Because of this, he sued for and obtained damages. The court below refused a peremptory instruction asked for by appellant, which we think should have been given. The able and ingenious arguments of counsel fail to parallel this case with cases' involving superior knowledge of the person in command, and, as two of them concede, the statute of 1898, p. 85, in reference to unsafe machinery, ways or appliances, or improper loading of cars, has no application. The laborer must be presumed to have knowledge equal, if not superior, to his employer of the effect of cold upon his feelings and person. His own temperament is better known to him than any one else, and his own sensations sound the alarm to himself. Men are presumed’to have ordinary common sense, until the contrary is shown, and the law does not speculate on degrees of knowledge about weather.

Reversed and remanded.

Reference

Full Case Name
Yazoo City Transportation Co. v. Daniel Smith
Cited By
4 cases
Status
Published
Syllabus
1. Master and Servant. Knowledge. Gold. Knowledge of atmospheric conditions and the effect of cold on his own body will he imputed to a servant as well as to this master. 2. Same. Incidental dangers. Tfnprecedmted cold. Injuries resulting to a servant from exposure to cold, impose no liability on the master when the cold was unprecedented, and exposure 1o cold not of that character was incidental to the nature of the servant’s employment. 3. Same. The act of .1898, p. 85, relating to the liability of corporations to employes for damages resulting from the use of defective appliances, ways, etc., has no application where the injui’y resulted from unprecedented weather.