Martin v. Atlantic Transport Co.
Martin v. Atlantic Transport Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
We cannot tell whether the probata followed the allegata in this case, as the statement of plaintiff’s cause of action does not appear in appellant’s paper book nor in the appendix to it, as required by rule 29. We must, therefore, assume that the averments and proofs correspond, and, with the latter before us, we cannot sustain the. contention of the appellant that the question of. its negligence should not have been submitted to the jury.,
At the time the appellee was injured he was employed as a stevedore by- the defendant company, which was engaged in the business of loading and unloading ships of the Hamburg-American Line, plying between Hamburg, Germany, and Philadelphia. The freight which, the company unloaded was shipped from Germany and was often marked in German. The cargo which the appellee was helping to unload included fourteen cases of “knall korkes,” marked “Knall Korkes, Vorsicht.” Knall korkes — dangerously explosive corks -r-are used in Germany as torpedoes and are well-known articles of commerce.. Prof. Theodore Shumacher, a German professor in the University of Pennsylvania, testified that the words “knall korke, vorsicht” are of common use and mean “explosive corks, should be handled with care.” A meaning of the word “vorsicht,” as given in Adler’s German dictionary, a standard au
The case was for the jury, and, as nothing in the assignments of error calls for a retrial, the judgment upon the verdict is affirmed.
Reference
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- Negligence — Master and servant — Explosives—Duty to warn. 1. A stevedore injured while engaged in unloading casks of explosive matter in ignorance of the nature of the contents of such casks, can recover from his employer in an action' for damages, if the employer has either actual or constructive knowledge of such danger and has failed in its duty of warning its employees of it and of giving them proper instructions how to avoid it. 2. In such case, where the stevedore company employing the plaintiff has received notice five days before the arrival of the ship that part of the cargo is “knall korke,” and where the casks are marked “Knall Korke, Vorsicht,” the German for “explosive corks, handle with care,” it is a question for the jury whether the company ought to have known of the dangerous nature of the explosives. 3. What an employer ought reasonably to know to be dangerous to his employees it is his duty to know, and he is, therefore, presumed to know.