Richards v. Rough
| Decision Date | 09 April 1884 |
| Citation | 18 N.W. 785,53 Mich. 212 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | RICHARDS v. ROUGH and others. |
An employer cannot be held responsible to a skilled employe for an injury received while using machinery with which he is particularly acquainted, and which neither he nor any other person ever regarded as unsafe.
A manufacturer may choose the machinery he desires to use, be it old or new, and may control his business in his own way provided he does no unlawful act. If the machinery is sound well made, and kept in repair, he will not be liable for an accident occurring to an employe, when the only ground alleged is that there is a better and safer kind used for the same purpose. Employers and their agents are only required to use ordinary care and prudence in protecting an employe against dangers not within his knowledge or observation.
An employer does not undertake, by an implied contract with an employe, that his machinery and appliances are safe beyond a contingency, nor that they are as safe as those of others using the same kind, nor that accidents shall not result to him from risks which perhaps others would guard against more effectually.
Where an employe, knowing all the danger there is in using a machine that his employers or their agents know, and being in such a position that, if any change occurs involving an increase of danger, he will be the first to see it, continues his service after such a change without a protest, it is at his option, and if injured he is remediless.
An employe must be held to understand the ordinary hazard attending his employment, and to have voluntarily taken upon himself this hazard when he enters his employer's service.
Where the facts of a case show that if an employer has negligently furnished an unsafe machine to an employe to use, the latter must have discovered it before the accident, and also that the employe chose to continue the service after such discovery, held, that the employe has assumed the consequences of the increased hazard, and has no cause against his employer for injury resulting therefrom.
Error to Berrien.
George S. Clapp, for plaintiff.
Van Riper & Worthingtan and Edward Bacon, for defendants and appellants.
The plaintiff brings his action on the case for injuries received while in the employ of defendants, using machinery which he alleges was unsafe. The defendants are partners, and for many years have been largely engaged in carrying on the business of manufacturing wagons at Buchanan, in this state. They are not mechanics. Their business in the shops, at the time of the accident complained of occurred, was under the general management of M.S. Mead, against whose competency for the position nothing appears in this record. He had the general superintendence of the entire business at the works, and George McNeil had the oversight and immediate charge of the blacksmith shops in which the injury to plaintiff occurred and nothing is alleged against his competency and fitness for his position. Various machines for sundry and divers purposes, all connected with the plaintiff's business however, were run and operated in this shop, and quite a large number of men were employed therein for that purpose. The motive power used for propelling the machinery was steam and there is no complaint but that this was properly managed. For 14 months before the accident occurred the plaintiff, who was then 23 years of age, had been working in the blacksmith shop for the defendants, cutting iron and punching holes in iron plates with the punching-machine, known as the Long & Alstater power press, and by which he claims to have been injured. The machine had been in use in the shop as long as the plaintiff had been there, and was in general use in such business establishments long before plaintiff used it, and he used it for two hours immediately preceding the accident, and when in the shop used it a quarter of the whole time he was employed. The die and punch were both new. The punch had been set twice. Mr. McNeal set it both times, and the plaintiff was present.
In describing the accident, the plaintiff says: One piece of steel went into his eye, another into his cheek, and another into his forehead. The plaintiff further testified that he had no thought of danger at all, in connection with punching the piece of iron, when the injury occurred. Plaintiff further stated he could use the machine and punch as well as Mr. McNeil could; that he understood how to use the machine, and noticed nothing...
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