Ryalls v. Mechanics' Mills

• Decision Date: 26 November 1889
• Citation: 22 N.E. 766,150 Mass. 190
• Parties: RYALLS v. MECHANICS' MILLS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

150 Mass. 190

22 N.E. 766

RYALLS

v.MECHANICS' MILLS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Bristol.

Nov. 26, 1889.

Report from superior court, Bristol county; ROBERT R. BISHOP, Judge.

J.W. Cummings, for plaintiff.

Morton & Jennings, for defendant.

HOLMES, J.

This is an action for personal injuries caused to an employe by a defect in the condition of the machinery used in the business of her employer. The declaration is framed without reference to the employers' liability act, (St.1887, c. 270,) and the plaintiff has had a verdict. We must take it, therefore, that the defect was of such a kind that the defendant would have been liable under our decisions, unless the above statute has cut down the plaintiff's common-law rights. The question raised by the report is whether, since that statute, an employe's right of action in cases like this is wholly statutory, and whether the plaintiff is barred because she did not give the notice of the time, place, and cause of the injury, without which, by section 3, no action for the recovery of compensation for injury under that act shall be maintained. It will be seen on reading the two statutes that ours is copied verbatim, with some variations of detail, from the English statute, (43 & 44 Vict. c. 42.) Therefore it is proper, if not necessary, to begin by considering how the English act had been construed before our statute was enacted. Com. v. Hartnett, 3 Gray, 450;Pratt v. Telephone Co., 141 Mass. 225, 227, 5 N.E.Rep. 307. Looking, first, at its general scope, it was plain that it did not attempt to codify the whole law as to the liability of employers. Rob. & W. Emp. Liab. (3d Ed.1885,) 208. It was regarded as an act passed in favor of workmen. Gibbs v. Railway Co., L.R. 12 Q.B.Div. 208, 211. See Walsh v. Whiteley, L.R. 21 Q.B.Div. 371, 380. It was held to be intended only to remove certain bars to their right to sue for personal injuries based on their relation to their employer. Griffiths v. Dudley, L.R. 9 Q.B.Div. 357; Weblin v. Ballard, L.R. 17 Q.B.Div. 122, 125; Thomas v. Quartermaine, L.R. 18 Q.B.Div. 685, 692; McAvoy v. Paraffin Co., 9 Ct.Sess.Cas. (4th Ser.) 100, 103; Morrison v. Baird, 10 Ct.Sess.Cas. (4th Ser.) 271, 277; Robertson v. Russell, 12 Ct.Sess.Cas. (4th Ser.) 634, 638. But these bars were removed only in the cases specified in the act. Griffiths v. Dudley, L.R. 9 Q.B.Div. 357, 362; Gibbs v. Railway Co., L.R. 12 Q.B.Div. 208; Rob. & W Emp. Liab. 241, 242. And defenses not based upon the relation of master and servant were left unaffected, although not mentioned Weblin v. Ballard, Thomas v. Quartermaine ubi supra. In agreement with these views and also with the fact that the qualification of sections 1 and 2, the limit of compensation set by section 3, the requirement of notice and limitation of time for suing in section 4, and the direction as to the court where the action shall be brought in section 6, are all confined to proceedings “under this act, the text-books argued and affirmed that the workman's common-law rights remained unimpaired. Rob. & W. Emp. Liab. (3d Ed. 207, 209, 331; Fras. Mast. & Serv. (3d Ed. 172; Spens & Y. Employer & Employed 130, 131; Macd. Mast. & Serv. 659, 660. The practice of proceeding under the statute and at common law in the same action seems to have been settled in Scotland. McDonagh v. MacLellan, 13 Ct. Sess. Cas. (4th Ser.) 1000, [150 Mass. 192]1003; Morrison v. Baird, ubi supra; Rob. & W. Emp. Liab. 209. And the intelligible doubt which may have been felt as to the reasoning in Morrison v. Baird, touching the right to remove the whole action to the court of session under section 6, (Spens & Y., supra 173,) did not affect the continued existence of common-law rights.

We shall add one or two references more specifically applying to this case after we have stated the substance of section 1. By section 1 of the English act, when “personal injury is caused to a workman (1) by reason of any defect in the condition of the *** machinery *** used in the business of the employer; *** the workman *** shall have the same right of compensation and remedies against the employe as if the workman had not been a workman of nor in the service of the employer, no engaged in his work.” This right, it will be seen, is given by this section without qualification. But then section 2 goes on to say that he shall not be entitled, “under this act to any right of compensation or remedy against the employer” under subsec. 1 of section 1, “unless the defect therein mentioned arose from or had not been discovered or remedied owing to the negligence of the employer or of some person in the service of the employer, and intrusted by him with the duty of seeing that the *** machinery *** [was] in proper condition.” Standing in this form, it was tolerably clear that subsec. 1 of section 1 was not intended, in connection with section 2, to codify as well as to enlarge a rule of the common law, and to make all actions by workmen for defects in machinery statutory; but that, like the other subsections of section 1, it purported at most only to do away with the defenses that the workman impliedly took upon himself the ordinary, manifest risks of his employment, (Weblin v. Ballard, Thomas v. Quartermaine, ubi supra; Yarmouth v. France, L.R. 19 Q.B.Div. 647, 654, see page 667,) or that the defect was due to the negligence of the person intrusted by the master with the supervision of the machinery, and that he was the plaintiff's fellow-servant, the ground on which the defendant escaped in Wilson v. Merry, L.R. 1 H.L.Sc. 326. Griffiths v. Dudley and Morrison v. Baird, ubi supra. The purport of section 1 was made clearer by the words “under this act,” just quoted from section 2, and the intent of section 2 obviously was to cut down and limit the unqualified provisions of section 1 to cases where there had been negligence on the part either of the employer or of the person intrusted by him. See Stuart v. Evans, 49 Law T.(N.S.) 138, 31 Wkly Rep. 706; Thomas v. Quartermaine, L.R. 18 Q.B.Div. 685, 693. It seems to follow that, as suggested by Rob. & W.Emp.Liab. 208, the requirement of notice in section 4, in order to maintain an action “under this act,” does not mean that a workman is “to lose all right of action because he gives no notice of injury, even when the employer himself is the culpable person, and the workman is at death's door during the whole of the six weeks.” In Thomas v. Quartermaine, L.R. 18 Q.B.Div. 702, FRY, L.J., cites with approval, although to a different end, another passage from page 252 of the same work, a part of which is as follows: “Suppose that, altogether through the carelessness of the employer, or of the persons intrusted with the duty of looking after the ways, etc., a foot-bridge becomes and is allowed to remain in a defective and dangerous condition, so that a workman who is injured while using the bridge in the course of his duty, and ignorant of its condition, would clearly have a right to sue the employer, in the first case at common law under the act, and in the second under the act.” Whether correct or not, this was the state of comment upon and construction of the English statute when the Massachusetts act was passed, copying its words very closely. We cannot deal with the latter quite on the same footing as if the legislature had framed it in their own language, used for the first time. We must assume that they were content with the expounded meaning of the words which they adopted. But it would not need the aid of previous exposition to show that the main purpose of the statute, as the title intimates, is to extend the liability of employers in favor of employes; that it does not attempt to codify the whole law upon the subject; and that it leaves open some common-law defenses and some common-law liabilities. In view of these general considerations we are to construe the statute liberally in favor of employes, and we ought to be slow to conclude that indirectly, and without express words to that effect, it has limited the workman's common-law rights most materially in respect to the conditions and times of bringing an action and the amount which he can recover. For all these provisions stand upon the same footing with regard to the present case. General maxims are oftener an excuse for the want of accurate analysis than a help in determining the extent of a duty or the construction of a statute. But certainly, with such a statute as this, we agree that common-law rights are not to be taken away by doubtful implications and affirmative words. Wilbur v. Crane, 13 Pick. 284, 290;Barden v. Crocker, 10 Pick. 383, 389; 2 Co. Inst. 200; Com.Dig. tit. “Action upon Statute,” C; Chapman v. Pickersgill, 2 Wils. 145, 146; Wilson v. Railway Co., 2 De Gex, J. & S. 475, 496. However, instead of following the...