Cahill v. Hilton

• Decision Date: 04 October 1887
• Citation: 13 N.E. 339,106 N.Y. 512
• Parties: CAHILL v. HILTON and another.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

106 N.Y. 512

13 N.E. 339

CAHILL

v.HILTON and another.

Court of Appeals of New York.

October 4, 1887.

Appeal from general term supreme court, Second department.

Frank B. Lown, for appellants.

Austen S. Fox, for respondent.

RUGER, C. J.

The accident by which the plaintiff lost an arm and seriously impaired his means of livelihood was one which appeals strongly to the sympathies, and naturally excites a desire to extend compensation to him for his misfortune. Courts, however, are powerless to render relief in such cases unless the consequences can be traced with certainty to the negligence of the parties charged therewith, unconnected with contributory fault on the part of the injured party. Persons engaged in the use of machinery employed in the various manufacturing industries of the country, and usually propelled by irresistible power, are necessarily exposed to great danger, and must mainly rely for immunity from injuries therefrom upon their own care and vigilance. It is undoubtedly the duty of the master employing servants in such establishments to exercise all reasonable care and prudence to obviate the dangers naturally arising from the employment; but there must remain many dangerous situations which cannot be anticipated or provided for, and from which the utmost care of the employer will be insufficient to protect his servants, and especially those who are careless or inattentive in the performance of their duties. Even when the employer is held to the strictest degree of accountability, there must necessarily be cases when accidents occur that are beyond the reach of any possible provision, and are chargeable solely to the risks incident to the nature of the employment, or the fault of the person injured. This seems to have been such a case. A master's liability to his servants for injuries received in the course of his employment is based upon the personal negligence of the employer, and the evidence must establish personal fault on his part, or what is equivalent thereto, to justify a verdict; and he is entitled to the benefit of the presumption that he has performed his duty until the contrary appears. Wood, Mast. & Serv. §§ 345, 346.

An examination of the evidence in this case does not, in our view, disclose any neglect on the defendant's part, but seems to prove that the accident was occasioned by plaintiff's want of care. The defendants were the owners of a carpet factory at Glenham, in this state, and the plaintiff had been in their employ about four years, as a general helper in the gig-room, where the accident occurred. The plaintiff was the only eye-witness of the transaction, and was entirely unable to give any account of the manner of its occurrence. The courts below have sustained a recovery against the defendants solely upon the ground that they were guilty of negligence in furnishing for use in their factory a ladder alleged to have been defective in some of its parts, and which the plaintiff was using at the time of his injury in attempting to shift a belt upon a shaft for the purpose of relacing it. There was no necessity for relacing these belts while the machinery was in motion, and no proof that the ladder was furnished for the purpose to which plaintiff put it, or that the defendants were aware of the manner in which he intended to use it. On the contrary, the superintendent and foreman of the factory had been expressly directed by the defendants not to allow the machinery to be repaired while in motion, and they both testified that they should have prevented it if the mode of doing it by the plaintiff had been brought to their attention. The ladder was about 12 feet long, and had been provided for no special purpose, but had been used some 15 years about the factory for the ordinary uses of such a ladder. The plaintiff testified that he and his fellow-servants had been in the habit, during the four years he worked in the factory, of relacing the belts in the gig-room while the machinery was in motion, as often as once in every two or three months.

The evidence of the defects in the ladder was furnished mainly by the plaintiff's co-servants, and they were evidently aware of the difficulty of the problem their evidence was designed to elucidate, viz., to show that the defects were so apparent that the defendants were chargeable with negligence for not observing them, but that they were also so obscure that the plaintiff, who was in the frequent use of the ladder, was excusable in not seeing them. The plaintiff's means of discovering these defects, if there were any, were quite equal to those of any of his witnesses; but the jury were permitted to find, upon such evidence, that the defendants were chargeable with negligence for not discovering and remedying them, and that the plaintiff, with superior means of observation, was ignorant of their existence. It is difficult to see upon what principle of logic or reason such a verdict can be supported. A ladder, like a spade or hoe, is an implement of simple structure, presenting no complicated question of power, motion, or construction, and intelligible in all of its parts to the dullest intellect. No reason can be perceived why the plaintiff, brought into daily contact with the tools used by him, as he was, should not be held chargeable, equally with the defendants, with knowledge of their imperfections. Marsh v. Chickering, 101 N. Y. 396, 5 N. E. Rep. 56. We do not, however, care to rest the decision of the case upon this proposition, as we are, after a careful consideration of the whole evidence, of the opinion that the ladder was not instrumental in producing the accident, and that, even if it was, the mode and time of its use were not attributable to the defendants. The evidence upon which our opinion is based was undisputed, and, when carefully analyzed,...