Bell v. Sawyer

• Decision Date: 23 February 1943
• Citation: 313 Mass. 250,47 N.E.2d 1
• Parties: JOSEPHINE BELL v. LILLIAN W. SAWYER.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

313 Mass. 250

47 N.E.2d 1

JOSEPHINE BELL v. LILLIAN W. SAWYER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Barnstable.

February 23, 1943

February 1, 1943.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., LUMMUS, DOLAN COX, & RONAN, JJ.

Agency, Independent contractor, Domestic servant.

Evidence would not have warranted a finding that the plaintiff, who sustained injuries caused by negligence of employees of the defendant while the plaintiff was engaged in doing laundry work and closing a summer residence for the defendant, was free from the right of control by the defendant as to the details of the work or was an independent contractor entitled to recover for injuries so caused.

TORT. Writ in the Superior Court dated April 11, 1940. There was a trial before Brown, J., who ordered a verdict for the defendant and reported the case to this court.

J. Schneider, for the plaintiff. S. P. Sears, for the defendant.

LUMMUS, J. This is an action of tort for personal injuries resulting from a fall by the plaintiff through a trap door at the summer residence of the defendant on October 27, 1939. At the argument the defendant conceded that the injuries were caused by the negligence of some of the household servants of the defendant, acting in the course of their employment.

The plaintiff was the only witness on the question of liability. Her testimony tended to prove the following facts. She had been doing laundry work for others at her house for more than thirty years, and did such work at two or three other houses. She also had opened summer residences in the spring and closed them in the fall for twelve years. She did the work in her own way as she saw fit. For five years she had done that work for the defendant. Nothing had been said by the defendant to the plaintiff on the occasion in question except to do the laundry and close the house. The plaintiff did the work in her own way. The plaintiff did some domestic work for quite a number of people around Hyannis. The defendant was one of her old customers. The plaintiff was experienced in laundry work and house cleaning and closing houses, and needed no directions from anybody. The defendant's household servants, a cook a waitress and a chauffeur, were helping to get the house closed. The plaintiff received fifty cents an hour.

At the conclusion of the evidence the judge directed a verdict for the defendant, subject to the plaintiff's exception. By stipulation the jury assessed damages at $4,000. The judge then reported the case upon the stipulation that if his ruling was correct the verdict for the defendant shall stand and otherwise a verdict shall be entered for the plaintiff for $4,000.

The defendant offered to show that she was a subscriber under the workmen's compensation act, and was covered by insurance under that act. But neither party argues that the fact is material. The abolition of the defences of contributory negligence, negligence of a fellow servant and assumption of risk does not apply to actions by domestic servants (such as the plaintiff was if she was a servant at all) for personal injuries. G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 152, Sections 66, 67. Sjostedt v. Webster, 306...