Corcoran v. Wanamaker
| Citation | 185 Pa. 496,39 A. 1108 |
| Decision Date | 11 April 1898 |
| Docket Number | 12 |
| Parties | Julia Corcoran, Appellant, v. John Wanamaker, Thomas B. Wanamaker and Robert C. Ogden, trading as John Wanamaker |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued March 31, 1898
Appeal, No. 12, Jan. T., 1898, by plaintiff, from order of C.P. No. 4, Phila. Co., Sept. T., 1896, No. 925, refusing to take off nonsuit. Affirmed.
Trespass to recover damages for personal injuries.
At the trial it appeared that the plaintiff, a girl eighteen years old, was employed in the defendants' laundry as a plain ironer. There was evidence that the defendants used in their laundry oxalic and sulphuric acids and chloride of lime. Plaintiff claimed that about three months after her first employment, she was set at work over a hot mangle; that she temporarily returned to plain ironing; that she was subsequently put to work again on the mangle, and that while she was at work at the mangle, her eyes became affected by fumes from the acids and chloride of lime, and that in consequence she subsequently lost her sight. There was no evidence that the defendants knew that the acids complained of would produce the disease from which the plaintiff suffered, or that it was not customary to use acids in laundries in the same manner and proportions as they were used in defendants' laundry. The court entered a compulsory nonsuit which it subsequently refused to take off.
Error assigned was refusal to take off nonsuit.
Judgment affirmed.
J Martin Rommel, for appellant. -- The case is precisely parallel with that of Wagner v. Jayne Chemical Company, 147 Pa. 475, which was also a suit brought for damages sustained by the inhalation of fumes: Rummell v. Dilworth, 111 Pa. 343; Lebbering v. Struthers, Wells & Co., 157 Pa. 323; Rummell v. Dilworth, 131 Pa. 509; Bannon v. Lutz, 158 Pa. 174; Dooner v. Canal Co., 171 Pa. 603; Tissue v. R.R., 112 Pa. 91.
W. L. Nevin, and P. F. Rothermel, Jr., for appellees. -- The master is not liable for an injury sustained by his servant where the danger is of such a character that it could not be ascertained by him in the exercise of reasonable care and prudence: Schall v. Cole, 107 Pa. 1; Titus v. Bradford, etc., R.R. Co., 136 Pa. 626.
Before GREEN, McCOLLUM, MITCHELL, DEAN and FELL, JJ.
There is no evidence that the defendants had any knowledge that the use of the acids complained of would produce the disease from which the plaintiff...
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...the employer was not liable since he had no knowledge or reasonable grounds to believe that the solution was harmful. In Corcoran v. Wanamaker, 185 Pa. 496, 39 A. 1108, a laundry worker was injured by acids used in her work, and it was held that since the employer had no knowledge that the ......
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