Harwell v. Columbia Mills

• Decision Date: 27 January 1919
• Docket Number: 10135.
• Citation: 98 S.E. 324,112 S.C. 177
• Parties: HARWELL v. COLUMBIA MILLS.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

98 S.E. 324

112 S.C. 177

HARWELL v. COLUMBIA MILLS.

No. 10135.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

January 27, 1919

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Richland County; W. H Townsend, Judge.

Action by E. T. Harwell against the Columbia Mills. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

A. H Davis, of Atlanta, Ga., and Barron, McKay, Frierson & Moffatt, of Columbia, for appellant.

B. L McDowell and Cole L. Blease, both of Columbia, for respondent.

FRASER J.

The respondent, Harwell, was an employé of the appellant mills. On the 4th day of October, 1916, while Harwell was at work he went into a closet in the room in which he was working that had been provided for the comfort and convenience of employés. As he came out of the closet he stepped on a wet place on the floor, and fell to the floor and injured himself. This action was brought for damages for the failure of the mills to provide a safe place in which to work. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, and from the judgment entered upon the verdict the defendant appealed.

I. The first exception complains of error in refusing to direct a verdict on the ground that no other reasonable conclusion could be drawn from the evidence than that the plaintiff had assumed the risk. The plaintiff admitted that he knew the place was wet, but not that he knew that it was slippery and dangerous. It was another witness who said that the floor was made of maple, and that when a maple floor was wet it was slippery. This exception cannot be sustained.

II. The second exception complains of error in refusing to direct a verdict on the ground that the negligence, if any, was that of a fellow servant. This exception cannot be sustained. It is not necessary to discuss the nonassignable duties of the master. The icebox leaked, and the water that fell on the floor ran across the floor in front of the closet door over which the employés were expected to go. Byer, a witness for the appellant, states that it was his particular business to oversee the conditions of the closets; that Mr. Harwell and a colored man who handled the ice were under him; that he had an instruction, before Mr. Harwell got hurt, to use sand as a precaution . The icebox was on wheels, and could have been repaired or removed to another place where it could have done no harm. The authorities of the mill knew that the floor needed attention and precautionary measures, and did not make the place safe by removing the cause of danger or taking the steps necessary to counteract the danger. There was evidence that the master had been warned of the danger.

III. Exception 3:

"His honor, the presiding judge, charged the jury as follows: 'But if you find that the risk which occasioned an injury, if any, to the plaintiff, was one which arose out of the master's negligence, then it would not be an ordinary risk incident to the work, assumed by the servant. In other words, the servant, when he enters upon the employment of the master, has a right to expect the master to use ordinary care to provide him a safe place for work, and a safe way in going to and from his work; and the master is not allowed, where he fails to use care to provide a safe place and way, to say that his failure was an ordinary risk assumed by the servant.'

This constituted error (a) in that it eliminated from the consideration of the jury the fact that a servant might assume a risk of which he was fully aware, the danger of which had existed for some time, and was perfectly obvious and apparent, even though the existence of such condition might be due indirectly to negligence of the master."

This exception cannot be sustained. It was followed almost immediately by:

"If you find from the evidence that the plaintiff knew of the wet and slippery condition of the floor over which he had to pass, if he did have to pass, and if the evidence that it was wet and slippery, or that by the exercise of ordinary care the plaintiff could have known of such condition, or that any reasonable man of ordinary care and prudence would have known of such condition, and that any reasonable man of ordinary care and prudence, knowing of such condition of the floor, would have realized the risk and danger in passing over it, and would not have attempted to pass over it, and that the plaintiff, in attempting to pass over the floor, failed to exercise the ordinary care which would have been exercised by a person of ordinary prudence under

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