McDermott v. City of Boston

• Citation: 133 Mass. 349
• Parties: John McDermott v. City of Boston
• Decision Date: 07 September 1882
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

133 Mass. 349

John McDermott v. City of Boston

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

September 7, 1882

Suffolk. Tort for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by the alleged negligence of the defendant. Answer a general denial. At the trial in this court, the plaintiff offered evidence tending to prove the following facts:

The defendant was engaged in the work of lowering and putting in position certain large iron pipes upon the margin of Chestnut Hill reservoir. Fourteen men were employed in said work including the plaintiff. The general management and direction of the work were entrusted to a superintendent, Jones, who was rarely personally present. Under him, one Dever and one McGranary had the personal management and direction of the work and workmen, and the furnishing of the apparatus and machinery for the same, -- Dever when there, and McGranary in Dever's absence. At the time the plaintiff was injured Dever was absent, and McGranary was present and in charge of the work; and at that time the only tackle or appliances brought to the place of work by the superintendent, or by any other person, for the purposes of the work, consisted of a rope and block with a single sheave. In a tool-chest, some five minutes' walk from this place, were additional blocks, including a double block; and at this time there were other gangs of men in the employ of the city, engaged in similar work in the vicinity; the tool-chest contained all the tackle and appliances, which were at the disposal of the different superintendents of the different gangs of men for their different specific jobs. The double block had been used the day before by the gang in which the plaintiff worked, in connection with the single block and the same rope; and the same rope was continued in use by them after the plaintiff was injured, and no other accident occurred before or after that.

The pipes, each of which was twelve feet long and forty-eight inches in diameter, and weighed about eight thousand pounds were lowered down an incline, the total fall of which was about six feet, and upon an angle of about thirty-five degrees. The method of lowering the pipe, at the time the plaintiff was injured, was as follows: one end of the rope was made fast to a fixed stand, thence carried to the pipe to be lowered and wound around it twice (making a single coil), carried back to the stand (to which the single block was attached) through the block, then some little distance to a post, around which it was wound in the same manner as around the pipe, and then passed into the hands of two or three of the men, who...