Blackstone v. Chelmsford Foundry Co.

• Decision Date: 26 February 1898
• Citation: 49 N.E. 635,170 Mass. 321
• Parties: BLACKSTONE v. CHELMSFORD FOUNDRY CO. et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

170 Mass. 321

49 N.E. 635

BLACKSTONE v. CHELMSFORD FOUNDRY CO. et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

February 26, 1898

COUNSEL

William

Schofield and C.F. Appleton Smith, for plaintiff.

John M.B. Churchill, for defendants Lord Bros. John Lowell and J.A. Lowell, for other defendants.

OPINION

KNOWLTON J.

The defendants Lord Bros. contracted with the Massachusetts General Hospital to construct certain iron corridors and an iron stairway at the McLean Asylum, in Waverly. They made a subcontract with the defendant the Chelmsford Foundry Company to build the stairway and certain other iron work. At the time of the accident to the plaintiff, the work done under their contract was not completed, and the possession of it had not been delivered to the Massachusetts General Hospital by either of the contractors. One of the steps of the stairway was without an iron tread, which was necessary to its completion: and the plaintiff, walking over it with a lantern in the nighttime, stepped through the opening and was injured. He was a fireman employed at the McLean Asylum, and, in returning to his work, he found his accustomed route blocked by a wall which had just been built so he started to go over the stairway to reach the engine room.

There was no evidence that either of the defendants invited any of the employés at the asylum to pass over the stairway or other unfinished portions of the work included in the contract. The stairway was in the control of the Chelmsford Foundry Company while in process of erection, and, if any of the employés of the McLean Asylum passed over it, they did so, not by invitation, but as licensees. The duty which the contractor owed them was not to provide a safe and convenient place for travel, but to refrain from doing them any willful injury and from setting traps for them. As to dangers arising from his negligent mode of conducting his business in reference to the ease or difficulty of passing over his premises, they took the place as they found it, with an implied understanding that he was not to change it for their safety or convenience. This is the rule in regard to persons who are using the premises of another as mere licensees. Metcalfe v. Steamship Co., 147 Mass. 66, 16 N.E. 701; Heinlein v. Railroad Co., 147 Mass. 136, 16 N.E 698; Reardon v. Thompson, 149 Mass. 267, 21 N.E 369; Redigan v. Railroad Co., 155 Mass. 44, 28 N.E. 1133; Walker v....