Alston v. Virginia-Carolina Chemical Co.
Alston v. Virginia-Carolina Chemical Co.
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Plaintiff recovered judgment against defendant for $500 damages for personal injury under the following circumstances : Plaintiff was employed as a carpenter’s helper, and was ordered to go into an acid chamber or tower to do some work. The tower, which had not been used for some weeks, was full of rioxious and deadly gases, which were generated and run through it for the action — chemical or physical— which resulted in their coming in contact with acid which flowed down from the top of the tower over bricks placed therein in the process of making fertilizer or the ingredients thereof. If the top had been removed from the tower, the gases would have passed out after a time, and the work could have been done in safety. ■
Plaintiff had been employed about the work some eight or nine years, probably, most of that time in the room where these gases were generated. But practically all of them were carried through flues into the tower, and he had suffered no inconvenience or injury from the little that had occasionally escaped into the room where he worked. He testified that he did not know of their dangerous or deadly quality, and that he had never been in one of the towers until the day he was injured, and that he did not know of or appreciate the danger of working in there, and had never been warned of it. The testimony further shows that the plaintiff’s superior, and defendant’s representative on the spot, did know of and appreciate the danger, and ordered the work to proceed, and kept the men at it about three hours, without warning them of the danger, notwithstanding the gases were so dense that they could not remain in the tower exceeding two or three minutes at a time.
*412
Judgment affirmed.
Reference
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. Master and Servant — Injuries to Servant — Liability op Master— Sufficiency of Evidence. — In an action for injuries, from inhaling gases, by the employee of a fertilizer manufacturer, evidence held sufficient to sustain verdict for plaintiff. 2. Master and Servant — Injuries to Servant — Liability of Master.— A manufacturer of fertilizer was liable to its employee, an ignorant negro, ordered to work in a tower containing deadly gases, where he could not remain and breathe for more than two or three minutes at a time, he being unaware of their tendency to injure, the order to work, under the circumstances, being an assurance of safety.