Reberk v. Horne & Danz Company
| Decision Date | 31 January 1902 |
| Docket Number | 12,741 - (75) |
| Citation | 88 N.W. 1003,85 Minn. 326 |
| Parties | ADAM REBERK v. HORNE & DANZ COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Ramsey county to recover $5,100 for personal injuries. From an order, Otis, J., sustaining a general demurrer to the complaint, plaintiff appealed. Affirmed.
Master and Servant -- Violation of Rule -- Remaining at Work.
The obligation of an employer, in a complicated business, where a large number of servants are mutually engaged, to formulate and enforce a proper rule for their conduct, will not authorize a claim for damages to one of such employees, who with knowledge of repeated violations of an established rule continues thereafter in the service, until injured.
Assumption of Risk.
Upon the allegations of the complaint, showing that a manufacturer of tinware had failed to enforce a rule prohibiting the throwing of dangerous substances around the room where plaintiff was at work, whereby such servant was injured, but wherein such servant acted with full knowledge of its violations and without notice thereof to the master, it is held that he assumed the risks of the situation, and cannot recover.
Charles J. Berryhill, for appellant.
P. J. McLaughlin, for respondent.
This appeal is from an order sustaining defendant's demurrer to the sufficiency of the complaint. It appears from the plaintiff's pleading that the defendant was largely engaged in the manufacture of tinware; that plaintiff was employed in one of the rooms of the establishment where there were many operatives. That his particular duty was to cut bottoms for lard pails. That he was injured by reason of a screw top of a sirup or oil can being thrown upon him by one of his fellow servants. It is alleged that at the time of the injury it was, and for some time prior thereto had been, the common and constant practice of said employees of said factory, other than this plaintiff, to throw in and about and around said shop small pieces of refuse tin and other substances and materials of tin and tinware, and during all of said times said defendant was fully informed thereof; that to prevent such conduct defendant had made rules to protect plaintiff and others from injury, which declared it to be the duty of every employee to refrain from throwing such articles, and each of such employees was forbidden to throw any of the refuse pieces of tin or other substances or articles in the shop at any time, whether the employees therein were at work or not. To enforce such rules, fines were imposed upon the employees guilty of its violation, ranging from fifteen cents to fifty cents in amount of the offender's wages, graduated according to the frequency and incidents of the offense in question, as defendant considered it. It appears,...
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