Hawkes v. Broadwalk Shoe Co.

• Decision Date: 22 November 1910
• Citation: 92 N.E. 1017,207 Mass. 117
• Parties: HAWKES v. BROADWALK SHOE CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

207 Mass. 117

92 N.E. 1017

HAWKES v. BROADWALK SHOE CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

November 22, 1910

COUNSEL

E. E Crawshaw, for plaintiff.

Knox & Walsh, for defendant.

OPINION

KNOWLTON C.J.

This suit is brought against the plaintiff's employer to recover for an injury received by falling upon a stairway which is alleged to have been slippery and dangerous from an accumulation of snow and ice upon it. The defendant occupied the second story of a three-story building, as a tenant at will of the owner. The first and third stories were occupied by other tenants at will. The tenant of the third floor had a right to use, in common with the defendant, an interior stairway leading down to a doorway opening upon a platform outside of the building. From this platform, steps, 10 in number, led down to the ground at a point about 15 feet distant from the public sidewalk, and these were used by all the tenants of the building. The platform and steps were about 8 feet wide, and the steps passed down by the front wall of the building, with a railing running down to the ground over the outer ends of the steps. The only question in the case is whether these steps were a part of the ways and works of the defendant, which it was bound to keep safe for the use of the plaintiff.

The declaration is under the employer's liability act (Rev Laws, c. 106, §§ 71-79), and the argument is made under the provisions of that act and the analogous doctrines of the common law.

The legal relation of the defendant to the steps where the accident happened seems to be that, as a tenant of the second story of the building, it was given a right, in common with others, to pass over the way from the street and up the steps and over the platform and through the interior passageways to the premises occupied by it as a tenant, while the landlord retained the possession and control of the steps and other parts of the passageway, subject only to the rights of the tenants to pass over them. Under the decisions, we are of opinion that these steps were not a part of the defendant's ways and works within the meaning of the employer's liability act. In Coffee v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, 155 Mass. 21-23, 28 N.E. 1128, the court said that, by the language in the statute, 'we understand something in the place, or means appliances or instrumentalities, provided by the employer for doing or carrying on the work which is to be done. The use of other words may not make the meaning clearer, but it would seem that there must be a defect in something which can in some sense be said to be provided by the employer.' These steps were not even upon the premises of the employer. They were not used in his business, but they were a part of the way over which the employer had a right of passage for itself and its employés, to enable them to reach its place of business. In Moynihan v. King's Windsor Cement, etc., Company, 168 Mass. 450-452, 47 N.E. 425, upon the question whether a swinging stage was a part of the defendant's ways, works or machinery, the court said: 'It...