Caddy v. Interborough Rapid Transit Co.

• Decision Date: 01 June 1909
• Citation: 88 N.E. 747,195 N.Y. 415
• Parties: CADDY v. INTERBOROUGH RAPID TRANSIT CO.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

195 N.Y. 415

88 N.E. 747

CADDY

v.INTERBOROUGH RAPID TRANSIT CO.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 1, 1909.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.

Action by William H. Caddy against the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. From an order of the Appellate Division (125 App. Div. 681,110 N. Y. Supp. 162) reversing a judgment of the Trial Term dismissing the complaint, defendant appeals. Affirmed.Lemuel E. Quigg, for appellant.

Charles M. Davenport, for respondent.

WERNER, J.

The plaintiff was injured while engaged in repairing one of defendant's cars in its shop in the borough of Manhattan in the city of New York. The car was 47 feet long, 8 feet 6 inches wide, and 16 feet high. It was ‘jacked up’ about 6 feet above the floor, so that its height over all was about 22 feet. Around the car there had been placed a staging consisting of ‘painters' horses,’ constructed like ladders, with rungs about 12 inches apart. Upon these ‘horses' were placed planks about 8 feet above the floor. The plaintiff was standing at work upon a plank which formed a part of the staging on the south side of the car when it broke and precipitated him to the floor, causing the injuries for which he seeks to recover in this action. At the Trial Term the complaint was dismissed. At the Appellate Division the judgment entered upon that decision was reversed and a new trial granted. Upon defendant's appeal to this court the two principal questions presented are whether the staging upon which the plaintiff was standing when it gave way was a ‘scaffold,’ and whether the car upon which he was at work was a ‘structure,’ within the purview of sections 18 and 19 of the statute commonly known as the ‘labor law’ (Laws 1897, p. 467, c. 415).

Before the enactment of that statute, it had been held that a staging or scaffolding erected for workmen was not a place in which to do their work, but an appliance or instrumentality by means of which the work was to be done, and the logical corollary of that conclusion was that, when the master had exercised reasonable care in the selection of competent fellow workmen and suitable materials for the proper construction of the appliance, he was not liable for injuries sustanined by one workman through the fault or negligence of another. Butler v. Town send, 126 N. Y. 105, 26 N. E. 1017;Kimmer v. Weber, 151 N. Y. 417, 45 N. E. 860, 56 Am. St. Rep. 630. By the statute of 1897 the Legislature established a different rule in specified instances where the employer assumes, or is charged with, the duty of furnishing scaffolding for the use of his employés. The statute provides that: ‘A person employing or directing another to perform labor of any kind in the erection, repairing, altering or painting of a house, building or structure shall not furnish or erect, or cause to be furnished or erected for the performance of such labor, scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders or other mechanical contrivances which are unsafe, unsuitable or improper, and which are not so constructed, placed and operated as to give proper protection to the life and limb of a person so employed or engaged.’ Section 18. And the following section adds that: ‘All swinging and stationary scaffolding shall be so constructed as to bear four times the maximum weight required to be dependent therefrom or placed thereon, when in use. * * *’ Section 19. In considering this statute in the case of Stewart v. Ferguson, 164 N. Y. 553, 556,58 N. E. 662, this court held that section 18 lays upon the master a positive prohibition, from the violation of which neigher his own ignorance nor the carelessness of his servants will shield him. In that case the statute as it now stands was compared with the provisions of an earlier one (Laws 1885, p. 539, c. 314, § 1), under which the master was charged with responsibility for ‘knowingly and negligently’ furnishing defective scaffolding, etc., and the decision was predicated upon the obvious purpose of the Legislature to impose upon the employer the affirmative and imperative duty to furnish to his employés stagings and scaffoldings for certain purposes that are safe, suitable, and proper, regardless of the employer's knowledge or negligence in the matter. This is absolute and unequivocal. Whenever a scaffold is furnished or caused to be furnished by an employer to be used in erecting, repairing, altering, or painting a house, building, or structure, it must be safe, suitable, and proper, or the employer is liable.

Thus far there is no difficulty in ascertaining the legislative purpose; beyond it there is doubt and uncertainty. And the trouble arises from the inherent impossibility of defining in unequivocal phrase the physical objects mentioned in the statute. What is a ‘scaffold’? What is a ‘structure’? These are the vexed questions which the courts are constantly being called upon to answer in cases involving and infinite variety of practical conditions. Experience has shown that they are questions which cannot be solved by academic discussion, and that even when they are applied to concrete facts they often lead judicial minds to radically divergent conclusions. In the case at bar the question is whether the car above described is a ‘structure’ within the meaning of the law. Counsel for the defendant, in a very lucid and forceful argument, invokes the rule of ejusdem generis. His contention, reduced to its shortest statement, is that the general word ‘structure’ must be limited by and comprehended within the specific terms ‘house’ and ‘building,’ and when thus construed it necessarily excludes all structures which do not fall within the generic description of houses and buildings. To this argument counsel for the plaintiff replies that the words ‘house’ and ‘building’ are in themselves so general and comprehensive that the word ‘structure’ cannot possibly broaden or amplify their meaning, and need not necessarily be associated therewith; that the term ‘structure’ was used, not to make more definite the description of ‘house’ and ‘building,’ but to enlarge to the fullest extent the list of artificial physical objects to which the reason of the statute can be applied. The question is not free from doubt, but we incline to the view that the rule of ejusdem generis does not apply. The term ‘house’ as used in common speech embraces every form of structure designed for human habitation; but in a legal sense it is even more comprehensive, as is shown by the statutes relating to burglary, arson, and other crimes which involve acts committed in or upon buildings or structures. A building is a structure, which, of course, includes every form of artificial house, but also many structures not included in that more restricted term; and so the word ‘structure,’ in its broadest sense, includes any production or piece of work artificially built up or composed of parts joined together in some definite manner, and its extended legal signification can easily be gathered from the great variety of subjects to which it is applied in creating and penalizing what are known as ‘statutory misdemeanors.’ In cases like this, lexicographers' definitions are useful as guideposts, but they do not take us to our destination. The statutory meaning of a word or phrase must be gathered from the purpose for which the law containing it was enacted. Under the common law it was often difficult to fix the legal responsibility for accidents arising from defective scaffoldings and stagings. In...