Copithorne v. Hardy

• Decision Date: 19 May 1899
• Citation: 53 N.E. 915,173 Mass. 400
• Parties: COPITHORNE v. HARDY et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

173 Mass. 400

53 N.E. 915

COPITHORNE v. HARDY et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

May 19, 1899

COUNSEL

J.E. Hannigan and J.S. Sullivan, for plaintiff.

John Lowell, for defendants.

OPINION

HOLMES J.

This is an action under the statute for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by a defect in the defendants' ways, works, and machinery. The plaintiff was in the defendants' employ, and was sitting at work, making pills, when some shafting fell and struck her on the back. Her care is not denied. The shafting had been moved the day before, by order of the superintendent, Shea, to the place from which it fell, by the carpenter, Maclaren, who attended to that kind of work under the superintendent's orders. It was a cone shaft, with six pulleys, and was attached to the ceiling by hangers, or brackets, and screws. When the machinery was started this morning, it squeaked, and was stopped. Maclaren worked on it again for some time, but in the afternoon it fell. Maclaren testified that the squeaking was in a different part from that which fell, but, of course it was for the jury to say whether they believed him, and whether, in any event, it did not point to a defect. He also said that putting up the shafting was not the simple job it seemed. The main question raised by the exceptions is whether there was any evidence of negligence, within the statute.

In the first place, we think it entirely plain that the conditions of which the plaintiff complains do not belong to that transitory class for which the employer is not responsible beyond furnishing a choice of proper materials or instrumentalities to the plaintiff or her fellow servants. To put it at the lowest, the jury were warranted in finding, as it was left to them to find, that this was one of those permanent arrangements as to which the duty of the employer could not be delegated, according to the well-known common-law distinction, or, under the statute, that, if there was a defect, it was a defect in the ways, works, and machinery. Prendible v. Manufacturing Co., 160 Mass 131, 35 N.E. 675. It does not matter that the shafting had been up only for a day. The defendants' liability was the same that it would have been a month later.

In the next place, we are not prepared to say that the jury were not warranted in finding that the defect which was shown to exist by the fall of the shafting presumably was due to the negligence of those who had charge of it. If the jury thought that such things generally can be prevented by reasonable care; that, as a rule, they do not happen from latent defects, but rather because some one has been careless, in failing to attach heavy machinery in such a way as to support its weight,--we cannot say that...