Early v. Houser & Houser
| Citation | 109 S.E. 914,28 Ga.App. 24 |
| Decision Date | 14 December 1921 |
| Docket Number | 12768. |
| Parties | EARLY v. HOUSER & HOUSER. |
| Court | United States Court of Appeals (Georgia) |
Syllabus by the Court.
Legal liability results only from a breach of legal duty, which implies the existence of some legal relation.
One who, without any employment whatever, but at the request of a servant who has no authority to employ other servants voluntarily undertakes to perform service for a master, is a mere volunteer, and the master does not owe him any duty except not to injure him willfully and wantonly after his peril is discovered.
The allegations of the petition failed to show a breach of any duty of the defendants to the plaintiff in connection with the act in which he is alleged to have been injured, and showed that this act was simply a voluntary one on his part in which he assumed all the risk.
Error from Superior Court, Dawson County; J. B. Jones, Judge.
Action by R. M. Early against Houser & Houser. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.
Early sued for damages on account of personal injuries, making substantially the following allegations: The defendants were the owners of and operated a public ginnery, to which the public was invited to bring cotton to be ginned, and for the ginning of which they charged a stipulated sum as compensation. The gin was generally operated by the defendants, "with the assistance of Jack Williams (sometimes called Jack Bruce), who was an employee of said" defendants. On the day of the alleged injury the defendants had gone away from the gin and left the entire management and control and operation of the ginnery under the control and management of Williams alone, and at the time of the injury he was the agent of the defendants, and, as such had entire control and management of and was operating the ginnery. On the day of the injury the plaintiff was a customer at the gin, having on that day carried a bale of seed cotton to the gin, and was then and there invited to place the cotton at the proper place to have it ginned, and was waiting to have it ginned. It is alleged that while he was unloading his cotton a belt running from a counter shaft to a pulley on the gin slipped and ran off of the pulley on the counter shaft, causing the gin to stop, and the counter shaft continued to revolve at a very rapid and increased speed; that when the belt ran off, the said Williams, who was then operating the gin alone, and had entire charge of it, having no assistance or help near or within call of him, called upon and requested and directed the plaintiff to assist him in putting the belt back on the pulley of the counter shaft; that this was an emergency in which it was necessary that the belt should be put back on the pulley, not only to avoid injury to the machinery, but in order that the ginning should continue and not be delayed, and in order that the plaintiff's cotton should be ginned and not delayed; that in order to lend a helping hand and in order that the gin might continue to run the plaintiff immediately complied with the request, and in so doing he came very close to the counter shaft, and his clothing was caught upon an unguarded and projecting set screw on the shaft, and he thereby received the injury for which he sued. The court sustained a demurrer to the petition, and the plaintiff excepted.
W. B. Sloan and H. H. Perry, both of Gainesville, for plaintiff in error.
E. C. Brannon, B. R. Taylor, and A. W. Vandiviere, all of Dawsonville, and O. J. Lilly, of Gainesville, for defendants in error.
The allegations of the petition show that the plaintiff was a volunteer, and, in undertaking to render a voluntary service...
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