Pickett v. Waldorf Sys., Inc.

• Decision Date: 26 June 1922
• Citation: 241 Mass. 569,136 N.E. 64
• Parties: PICKETT v. WALDORF SYSTEM, Inc.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

241 Mass. 569

136 N.E. 64

PICKETT

v.WALDORF SYSTEM, Inc.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

June 26, 1922.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Middlesex County; John A. Aiken, Judge.

Action by Helen A. Pickett against the Waldorf System, Inc., for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by slipping on ice on the sidewalk in front of defendant's lunch room. Verdict for plaintiff for $2,654, and defendant brings exceptions. Exceptions sustained, and judgment entered for defendant.

Defendant moved for a directed verdict and also requested instructions, among others, that if the cleaning of defendant's windows was not done by it, but according to a contract by a third party it was not liable for the negligence of the third party or its servants, that if the window cleaner was not subject to defendant's direction and control in the details of the work he was the servant of the window cleaning company and not of defendant, that defendant would not be liable for the carelessness or negligence of the window clearner if he was the servant of the window cleaning company and not of defendant, and that merely because the work had to be satisfactory to defendant's manager did not make the window cleaner defendant's servant, but that this was to secure a proper performance of the work and did not enable defendant's manager to control and direct the details of the work. The court refused the requested instructions and charged in part that if defendant was in the occupation of the premises and undertook to wash the windows, though in that undertaking it employed an independent contractor to do the work, there would be responsibility if it was done in a way which in the judgment of the jury was faulty, and that to support a verdict for plaintiff the jury must find that water used in washing the window flowed on the sidewalk and made it slippery. Defendant excepted to the charge that defendant would be liable for an act of an independent contractor if the contractor did the work in a way which in the judgment of the jury was faulty.Herbert M. Bridey, of Boston, for plaintiff.

Peabody, Arnold, Batchelder & Luther, of Boston, for defendant.

RUGG, D. J.

This is an action of tort wherein the plaintiff seeks to recover compensation for injuries sustained by her by slipping upon ice on a public sidewalk adjacent to a building or part of building occupied by the defendant.

The defendant was not liable to the plaintiff if the ice on which she slipped formed from natural causes. Sanborn v. McKeagney, 229 Mass. 300, 118 N. E. 263, and cases there cited; Hart v. Wright, 235 Mass. 243, 126 N. E. 383;Tiffany v. Vorenberg Co., 238 Mass. 183, 130 N. E. 193, 14 A. L. R. 222. The jury were so instructed.

There was evidence tending to show that the ice in question formed by the freezing of water used in washing the outside of windows in the defendant's premises by an employee of the City Window Cleaning Company, with whom the defendant had agreed by an independent contract to wash its windows every day except Sundays and holidays. The defendant did not pay the employee of the City Window Cleaning Company. It exercised no direction or control over him. It had no right to command him to do or to refrain from doing any act in the performance of the contract. He did his work in his own way or as instructed by his employer. The question to be decided is whether the defendant is liable for the negligence of the employee of the City Window Cleaning Company in causing water to accumulate on the sidewalk and permitting it to become ice there by...