Prescott v. Ball Engine Co.
Prescott v. Ball Engine Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
Whose was the negligence from which the plaintiff in this case suffered? Was it that of the defendant company or that of a coemployee ? This was the controlling question on which the plaintiff’s right to recover depended. It was presented to the court by the defendant’s points, numbers one, two, tMee, five and six, the answers to which are complained of by the assignments of error numbered from thirteen to seventeen inclusive. The duty of the employer is to provide a safe place in which Ms employees may work, suitable tools and machinery to use while at work, reasonably competent fellow servants with whom to work, and such instruction to the young and inexperienced as may be necessary to warn them against the peculiar dangers incident to the kind of work in which they are to be engaged. He must also furMsh them with suitable materials for use: Ross v. Walker, 139 Pa. 49. But he is not liable to them for injuries due to their incompetency or carelessness, or to the negligence or malice of their coemployees. The duty of an employee is to use his senses in all that relates to his enqfioyment, to exercise attention and care in the selection of mate
The errors pointed out require us to reverse this judgment. A venire facias de novo is awarded.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Sampson Prescott v. Ball Engine Company
- Cited By
- 19 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Negligence — Master and servant — Tools and material — Fellow servant. The duly of an employer is to provide a safe place in which his employees may work, suitable tools and machinery to use while at work, reasonably competent fellow servants with whom to work, and such instruction to the young and inexperienced as may be necessary to warn them against the peculiar dangers incident to the kind of work in which they are to be engaged. He must also furnish them with suitable materials for use; but he is not liable to them for injuries due to their ineompotency or carelessness, or to the negligence or malice of their coemployees. The duty of an employee is to use his senses in all that relates to his employment, to exercise attention and care in the selection of materials from the mass provided for the general use, and in the manner of their general use, and to provide with reasonable- diligence for the safety of himself and his coemployees in his management of his own share of the work to be done. Master and servant — Fellow servant — Rigger and workman. A rigger in a works of a manufacturer of machinery whose duty it is to keep and maintain a suitable supply of ropes from which the workmen may select suitable and safe ropes for hoisting various pieces of machinery, is a vice principal, and not a fellow servant of the workmen. Negligence — Fellow servants — Defective ropes. In an action by an employee against his employer to recover damages for personal injuries, it appeared that the plaintiff was injured by the breaking of a defective rope used in hoisting a piece of machinery. The ropes were in charge of the rigger, whose duty it was to keep on hand a supply of ropes, some of which should be at all times suitable for use. It was not, however, the duty of the rigger to select the rope to be used on each occasion when a rope was wanted. The rope in use at the time of the accident had not been selected by the rigger, but by one of the plaintiff’s fellow workmen. Held, (1) that to entitle the plaintiff to recover he was bound to show that there was no better rope in the stock on hand from -which the workmen had a right to select, than the one which was actually selected; (2) that the failure of the rope selected was not due to the manner in which it was put upon the shaft, but to the insufficiency of the rope itself to answer the purposes for which it was offered to the workmen; (3) that the defendant was bound to show no more than that a sufficient number of ropes was provided for the use of the workmen, and that some of them, accessible at all times, were of sufficient strength for the support of a weight, such as was handled at the time the accident occurred; (4) that if a poor rope was used when a good one was within reach, it was negligence, and whether chargeable to the plaintiff or to a coemployee it relieved the defendant from all liability for the injury sustained. In an action by an employee against his employer to recover damages for personal injuries suffered by reason of a defective rope used in hoisting heavy machinery, it appeared that the workmen in the defendant’s establishment had a right to select ropes from certain stocks of rope supplied by the defendant. One of the workmen testified that he was allowed to take whatever ropes or slings he wanted. He was then asked “Was it the same with the other workmen as to their right to get slings as you did ? ” He replied, “ Yes, sir, they were,” and then added, “ the foreman told me so.” The whole answer was objected to, and the evidence was excluded. Held, to be error, inasmuch as the witness had a right to state what he knew of his own knowledge of the usage of the shop.