Inez T. Jourdenais v. Charles C. Hayden

• Decision Date: 04 February 1932
• Citation: 158 A. 664,104 Vt. 215
• Parties: INEZ T. JOURDENAIS v. CHARLES C. HAYDEN
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

158 A. 664

104 Vt. 215

INEZ T. JOURDENAIS v. CHARLES C. HAYDEN

Supreme Court of Vermont

February 4, 1932

January Term, 1932.

Master and Servant---Independent Contractor---Installation of Electric Signs as Lawful---Negligence---Effect of Failure To Secure Permit To Erect Electric Sign on Question of Negligence---Violation of Statute as Related to Question of Negligence---Installation of Electric Sign Not Intrinsically Dangerous.

1. Person employing independent contractor is not ordinarily liable for latter's negligence.

2. Company employed to install electric sign, by storekeeper who neither reserved nor exercised any control over means to be adopted or methods by which company should perform such work but merely indicated where sign should be located, held independent contractor, for whose negligence storekeeper was not liable.

3. Installation of electric sign, held not unlawful, its erection not being proscribed by law or public policy.

4. Noncompliance with city ordinance requiring permit for installation of electric sign, held to have no causal connection to presence of rope, stretched across sidewalk to hold ladder while work was being performed, over which pedestrian tripped and was injured, so as to make owner of store on which sign was being erected liable for such injury hence was irrelevant and inadmissible fact.

5. Violation of statute does not afford basis for action for negligence, unless it was proximate cause of accident.

6. Installation of electric sign, held not to be intrinsically dangerous, so as to come within exception to general rule that one employing independent contractor is not liable for his negligence.

ACTION OF TORT for negligence. Plea, general issue. Trial by court at the March Term, 1931, Rutland County, Buttles, J presiding. Verdict directed for defendant, and judgment on verdict. The plaintiff excepted. The opinion states the case.

Judgment affirmed.

Novak, Bloomer & Spero for the plaintiff.

Clayton H. Kinney, Marvelle C. Webber, and Vernon J. Loveland for the defendant.

Present: POWERS, C. J., SLACK, MOULTON, THOMPSON, and GRAHAM, JJ.

OPINION

POWERS

The defendant owned and operated a store on a very busy street in the city of Rutland. He purchased an electric sign therefor, and engaged the Reed Electric Company to install it. That company sent its employees with tools and equipment to the defendant's store to do the job. The defendant told these men, Allard and Severance, where, on the face of the building, he wanted the sign placed, and they went to work. They took a ladder which they had brought with them, erected it against the front of the building with the foot of it four to six feet from the wall, and to keep it from slipping, fastened it by a rope extending from the foot of the ladder to a ring or handle in the sidewalk next to the building. The plaintiff came out of a nearby store, and in passing along the sidewalk under the ladder, she tripped over this rope and sustained the injuries which are the basis of this suit. The court below ordered a verdict for defendant, and the plaintiff alleges error.

The parties do not disagree as to what the law applicable to this class of cases is, and they could not very well for it is well established by our decisions. It is all shown by Richards v. Consolidated Lighting Co., 90 Vt. 552, 99 A. 241, and cases cited. One is not, ordinarily liable for the negligence of an independent contractor. That the electric company was such a contractor, that Allard and Severance were its servants since it hired them, and paid them, and had the sole right to direct the way in which they should go about this work, what facilities they should use and how they should secure the same, is all too plain to be seriously questioned. The transcript clearly shows that the defendant neither reserved nor exercised any control over the means they should adopt or the methods by which they should perform the work of their assignment. To be sure, he pointed out the place where the sign was to be located, and made some slight change in the location when difficulties ...