Mcintyre v. Boston & M.R.r.
| Decision Date | 02 March 1895 |
| Citation | 163 Mass. 189,39 N.E. 1012 |
| Parties | McINTYRE v. BOSTON & M.R.R. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Bordman Hall and R.W. Goding, for plaintiff.
Solomon Lincoln and Thomas Hunt, for defendant.
There was evidence from which the jury might find that the plaintiff, while in the discharge of duty, and using due care, was injured by the breaking of a weak, knotty worm-eaten and rotten stake, which was unfit for the use to which it had been put, of holding a load of railroad ties upon a platform car, and, from the description of the stake it would be competent for a jury to find that the putting of such a stake to such a use was an act of negligence. The use of the stake as a means of facilitating the passage of a brakeman from car to car of the train made it the duty of the defendant to use due care to see that it was suitable for that purpose. Coates v. Railroad Co., 153 Mass. 297, 26 N.E. 864. A section master of the defendant road, who was an inspector of ties, testified that the stakes belonged to the defendant, and were placed in position by men in its employment; that the defendant bought the lumber of which the stakes were made, and that it was sawed up and the cars were staked under his direction; that the defendant supplied lumber enough, and good lumber enough for the purpose of stakes, and men enough to prepare them and that sometimes, but not often, stakes were returned with a car, but usually they were lost. The accident happened in New Hampshire, and three decisions of the supreme court of that state were in evidence as showing the law of New Hampshire. These were Fifield v. Railroad Co., 42 N.H. 225; Hanley v. Railroad Co., 62 N.H. 274; and Nash v. Steel Co., Id. 406. These decisions do not show that the doctrine that intrusting to suitable servants the duty of furnishing suitable appliances for the work does not discharge an employer from the consequences of negligence on the part of such servants in providing safe and suitable appliances is not the law of New Hampshire. That question was not raised or decided in the decisions which were in evidence, and we must assume that the law of New Hampshire upon the question is the same as our own. The case is not one where an implement designed for repeated use has been weakened and made unfit for further service by such use; it is rather the case of the furnishing of an implement never fit for...
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Callahan v. Trs. of Phillips Acad.
...boards seven-eighths of an inch thick, and that such boards were unfit for the purpose. The plaintiff also relies on McIntyre v. Railroad, 163 Mass. 189, 39 N. E. 1012. In that case it was the duty of the defendant to furnish suitable stakes for its flat cars. When such a duty exists, the p......
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Callahan v. Trustees of Phillips Academy
... ... The ... plaintiff also relies on McIntyre v. Railroad, 163 ... Mass. 189, 39 N.E. 1012. In that case it was the duty of the ... defendant ... ...