King v. Forbes Lithograph Mfg. Co.
| Decision Date | 21 May 1903 |
| Citation | 183 Mass. 301,67 N.E. 330 |
| Parties | KING v. FORBES LITHOGRAPH MFG. CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
P. B. Kiernan, for plaintiff.
Walter I. Badger and Geo. A. Drury, for defendant.
The plaintiff is a physician and surgeon in Chelsea. The defendant corporation employs a large number of persons in printing and lithographing at its factory in the same city. One Clayton, an employé of the defendant, was injured in the machinery at the factory, and taken to the hospital, where the plaintiff attended him. This action is brought to recover compensation for the plaintiff's services in caring for him.
The only evidence relied on to show a contract of the defendant to pay the plaintiff is testimony that a superintendent of the defendant's cartoon department, who was authorized to employ and discharge workmen, told Clayton to go to the hospital to be treated, and said that all bills would be paid by the defendant. There is no evidence that this superintendent of a department was authorized to make such a contract as agent for the defendant, and it is very plain that his authority to hire and discharge employés did not give him a right to bind the defendant by a contract to pay for medical or surgical treatment of one of its employés. See St. Louis, etc., v. Olive, 40 Ill.App. 82; Chaplin v. Freeland, 7 Ind. App. 676, 34 N.E. 1007; Sweet, etc., v. Glover, 29 Ga. 399; Meisenbach v. The Southern Co., 45 Mo.App. 232; Dale & Banks v. Donaldson Lumber Co., 48 Ark. 188, 2 S.W. 703, 3 Am. St. Rep. 224. In those jurisdictions where railroad companies have been held liable for medical attendance procured for an employé by one of their agents, the liability has been limited to cases in which there was an extreme emergency calling for immediate medical or surgical attendance. The Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad Co. v. McMurray, 98 Ind. 358, 49 Am. Rep. 752, and cases cited; Holmes v. McAllister, 123 Mich. 493, 82 N.W. 220, 48 L. R. A. 396. There is no evidence to warrant a finding that there was an implied contract on the part of the defendant to pay for such services, and it is not contended that the undertaking of the superintendent was ratified.
Exceptions overruled.
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