George H. Hammond & Co. v. Schweitzer
| Decision Date | 05 November 1887 |
| Docket Number | 12,781 |
| Citation | 13 N.E. 869,112 Ind. 246 |
| Parties | George H. Hammond & Co. v. Schweitzer |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Lake Circuit Court.
The judgment is affirmed, with costs.
J Kopelke, for appellant.
E Griffin, C. F. Griffin, J. B. Julian and J. F. Julian, for appellee.
The complaint in this case charges that, on the 26th day of January, 1885, the appellee, Schweitzer, was in the employ of George H. Hammond & Co., a corporation engaged in the manufacture of glue and other commodities at Hammond Indiana. While so employed the plaintiff alleges that it became his duty to use, and pass up and down upon, an elevator supplied by the company for the purpose of carrying material back and forth from the basement to the top of the building in which the company conducted its business. The plaintiff alleges that, by the carelessness and negligence of the company, the cable and other apparatus connected with the elevator were, with the defendant's knowledge, permitted to be and remain unsafe, dangerous and unfit for the purposes for which they were used, of which fact the plaintiff alleges he was ignorant. He charges that, while ascending from the basement in the line of his duty, the cable which supported the elevator broke, or slipped, thereby causing the elevator, with the plaintiff upon it, to be precipitated some twenty feet to the basement, whereby the plaintiff, without any fault, sustained grievous bodily injuries.
This complaint is not open to the objections urged against it by the appellant. It charges generally that the appellant carelessly and negligently permitted its elevator, which the plaintiff in the performance of his duties was required to go upon, to become dangerous, and to be and remain unfit for use, and that the latter, without knowledge of its dangerous condition, while in the course of his employment, was injured, without his fault, by reason of the unsafe condition of the elevator.
It has been repeatedly held that a general allegation of negligence in the performance of, or in failing to perform, a duty which the law casts upon a defendant, resulting in injury to a plaintiff, who is without fault, is sufficient to withstand a demurrer. Cleveland, etc., R. W. Co. v. Wynant, 100 Ind. 160; Pittsburgh, etc., R. W. Co. v. Adams, 105 Ind. 151, 5 N.E. 187; Town of Rushville v. Adams, 107 Ind. 475, 8 N.E. 292.
If the defendant desired the complaint to specify more particularly wherein the plaintiff claimed the defendant was negligent, a motion to make the complaint more specific would have presented the question.
Where the necessities of his employment require an employee to use machinery or appliances in the course of his employment, the employer owes the corresponding duty of exercising care in furnishing and maintaining machinery and appliances that are reasonably safe, or of giving notice to the employee of defects that are not obvious or of which the latter has no knowledge.
This duty rested upon the appellant, and, according to...
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