Deye v. Lodge & Shipley Mach. Tool Co.
Deye v. Lodge & Shipley Mach. Tool Co.
Opinion of the Court
after making the foregoing statement of the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
The general fitness and competency of Butz,.the foreman, who is said to have negligently piled the castings which fell and inj’ured Deye, was not questioned. That Butz and Deye were fellow servants, and that each assumed, as part of the risk of the business, the risk of the negligence of the other and of the other workmen engaged in and about the castings and cleaning branch of the defendant’s business, is equally indisputable. The case must turn, therefore, upon the question as to whether the place of work was dangerous through neglect of any personal duty imposed by law upon the employer. The contention is that the place where Deye was called upon to work when hurt was a dangerous place, by reason of its proximity to a pile of castings which were liable to slip and fall because not properly piled, with strips of wood between them. The place was safe enough, except in so far as it was made unsafe by the system or manner in which these castings were piled. There was evidence tending to show that these beds would not have been so liable to slip and fall if sticks of wood had been placed between
Was the defendant company under any duty to supervise the method of piling such castings, or was that a detail of the business, which might be left to the judgment of the men whose business it was to receive, pile, and handle them? The system or manner in which they were piled when received from the foundry, and kept until needed for use in the machine shop, was one adopted by Lutz and those who were his fellow servants in this branch of the business. The case must therefore turn upon the question as to whether the defendant company, as the employer, owed'any nondelegable personal duty in respect to supervising the methods adopted by Lutz and his fellow workmen, of whom Deye was one, for stacking, storing, or piling these rough castings.
That an employer engaged in a complicated and dangerous business is under obligation to prescribe rules for its orderly and safe' conduct is a well-settled principle of the law of master and servant. B. & O. R. R. v. Doty (C. C. A.) 133 Fed. 866; Woods, Law of Master & Servant, § 403; Shearman & Redfield on Negligence, § 202; Slater v. Jewett, 85 N. Y. 61, 39 Am. Rep. 627. Brit this rule presupposes a complicated business, involving danger to those con- - ducting it unless it be managed upon some prescribed system. A railway business is an example. The general business conducted by the defendant corporation may, in some of its aspects, be one of such complexity and danger as to require its conduct according to system or rule, having regard to the safety of its servants. But' the matter we have to deal with is the simple question of receiving and piling rough, heavy castings in a room devoted to their storage until cleaned and needed in the machine shop. These castings had been made in the foundry. The next step was their transportation from the foundry to the place where they were to be kept and cleaned, and piled to wait their removal to the machine shop, to be there converted into a great tool .by skilled men. The work which Lutz and the men under him, including Deye, were engaged to do, was the work of receiving, piling, and cleaning these and other castings; and, if they were negligently, piled, it was because a part of the very work which they were employed to do was done in a negligent manner. It is true that Deye had not helped receive or pile these lathe beds; true, he had not before been required to assist in lifting- one for removal to the machine shop. Nevertheless his. employment involved every phase of the work superintended by Lutz. We say, therefore, that the mere detail of how these castings should be' piled was a part performance of the work itself, the risk
Judgment affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- DEYE v. LODGE & SHIPLEY MACH. TOOL CO.
- Cited By
- 15 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. Master and Servant—Place to Work—Assumed Risk from Negligence of Fellow Servants. Where the place in which an employé was required to work, and where he was injured, was only dangerous because of the negligence of his fellow workmen in carrying on the work, the risk from such danger was one which was assumed, and the master cannot be held liable for the injury. [Ed. Note.—For casés in point, see vol. 34, Cent. Dig. Master and Servant, §§ 567-573. Assumption of risk incident to employment, see note to Chesapeake & O. R. Co. v. Hennessey, 38 C. C. A. 314.] 2. Same. A company engaged in making heavy machine tools caused lathe beds, after they had been cast, to be taken to the finishing shop, where they were finished and cleaned, and piled up until wanted for use by the employes there, under directions of a foreman, who was generally competent. Held, that the .company owed no personal duty, as a master, to supervise the manner in which the beds were piled, and could not be held liable for an injury to a fellow servant of the foreman, caused by the slipping of on.e of the castings from a pile near which he was working, and which was alleged to have been, improperly built, on the theory that he was not furnished- with a reasonably safe place to work; the piling of the castings being a detail of the work itself, the risk from which was assumed by the workman.