Boston Woven-hose & Rubber Co. v. Kendall

• Decision Date: 02 March 1901
• Citation: 59 N.E. 657,178 Mass. 232
• Parties: BOSTON WOVEN-HOSE & RUBBER CO. v. KENDALL.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

178 Mass. 232

59 N.E. 657

BOSTON WOVEN-HOSE & RUBBER CO. v. KENDALL.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

March 2, 1901

COUNSEL

Conrad

Reno for plaintiff.

Alfred Hemenway and H. S. McPherson, for defendant.

OPINION

HOLMES, C.J.

This is an action to recover damages which the plaintiff had to pay to its employees for personal injuries caused by an explosion of a boiler made by the defendants. The facts may be stated in a few words. The defendants, who were first class boiler makers, undertook to make for the plaintiff a boiler which would stand a working pressure of one hundred pounds, and, on the plaintiff's testimony, understood that the boiler was to be used to contain naphtha vapor for experiments in devulcanizing indiarubber. An experiment was tried, and, at a pressure of less than one hundred pounds, the naphtha vapor blew out the packing between the door and the end of the boiler by the side of the hinge, escaped into the air ignited and caused the damage for which the plaintiff had to pay. According to the plaintiff's evidence the accident was due to an improper construction of the hinge, which, by not having play enough, prevented that part of the door which was nearest to it from being pressed close to the boiler end by clamps which were used for that purpose.

At the trial the defendants asked many rulings and took many exceptions, but in the main they are condensed by the present argument into the general proposition that inasmuch as the plaintiff could not have been compelled to pay its workmen except on the ground that it had been wanting in due care, it cannot hold the defendants answerable for what would not have happened if the plaintiff had done its duty. The case is treated by the defendants' counsel as if it stood on the same footing as one where a plaintiff seeks to recover for personal injuries to himself to which his own negligence has contributed. But the judge allowed the plaintiff to recover a verdict on proving as it did to the satisfaction of the jury that it was liable for the damages which it paid, and also that although negligent as toward its servants it had shown all the care which the defendants had a right to expect.

We are fully aware of the difficulties in the way of holding a person liable for damage when the tort of another has intervened between his act and the result complained of. Glynn v. Railroad Co., 175 Mass. 510, 511, 56 N.E. 698, and cases cited. Nevertheless it is held by our decisions that in some cases of that sort there may be a recovery, and this seems to be recognized in the case upon which the defendants chiefly rely. Nashua Iron & Steel Co. v. Worcester & N. R. Co., 62 N.H. 159. The defendants to bring themselves within the distinctions there taken, insist that we must assume that the plaintiff here might have prevented the accident by ordinary care, because it must have been held liable on the ground of a want of such care, and that, in such a case at least, it cannot make the defendants indemnify it.

We are of opinion that the plaintiff is entitled to hold its verdict, and that if indemnity ever is to be recovered, short of an express contract of insurance, for what is in form the result of a tort on the plaintiff's part, this case belongs to the class in which it should be allowed. The plaintiff's misconduct consisted in a failure to discover by inspection a defect in an article specially made for it and probably not falling within the exceptional rule as to well known articles made by reputable makers and sold in the market ready for use. Shea v. Wellington, 163 Mass. 364, 369, 40 N.E. 173. Such a failure might make the plaintiff answerable to its men, but even if its conduct be called want of ordinary care, it was induced, as we must assume after the verdict, by the warranty of representations of the defendants. The very purpose of the...