Boisvert v. Ward

Citation199 Mass. 594,85 N.E. 849
PartiesBOISVERT v. WARD.
Decision Date21 October 1908
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

199 Mass. 594
85 N.E. 849

BOISVERT
v.
WARD.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

Oct. 21, 1908.


Exceptions from Superior Court, Worcester County; Henry A. King, Judge.

Personal injury action by Toussaint Boisvert against Edward D. Ward. From a verdict for defendant, plaintiff brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.


[199 Mass. 595]M. M. Taylor and V. E. Runo, for plaintiff.

Parker & Milton, Herbert Parker, C. C. Milton, and G. A. Gaskill, for defendant.


RUGG, J.

The plaintiff was a carpenter with an experience of about 20 years. Although he had never before worked at tearing down a roof, it does not appear that he gave this information to the defendant when getting employment with him for the first time on the day of the accident. He was apparently hired on the footing of his experience as a journeyman carpenter, and sent to work in tearing the boards off the roof of a building, which was being demolished to make way for a new structure. He was given an iron bar and told to rip off the

[85 N.E. 850]

boards and to [199 Mass. 596]throw them in a certain place, and then to take down the rafters. After loosening a considerable number of boards and while trying to lay across the rafters some boards, upon which to walk while carrying the rest to the place of deposit, one of the rafters broke, and he received injuries, for which he seeks compensation in this action. The place where the rafters broke was exposed by the loosening of the boards by other workmen who had preceded the plaintiff in the service, but it was open to sight, and as the plaintiff progressed in his work more and more of several rafters became exposed to view. The rafters were painted on the sides and bottom, so that the natural wood could be seen only as the boards were taken off from the top. Examination after the accident revealed the fact that the rafter, which broke, and whose dimensions were 2 inches wide by 7 inches thick was rotten for a length of 8 inches to a foot, and for a depth of about 1 1/2 or 2 inches. The defendant built the roof 10 or 11 years before the accident partly of old and partly of new material, and had used it as a platform in the construction of another building for about two weeks, immediately before the plaintiff's employment, but made no other test to determine its strength. It did not appear that the defendant or his servants had any particular knowledge of the weakness of the rafter, and the plaintiff was given no warning respecting it, other than that...

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