Vonas v. Acme Paper Bd. Co. Fado

• Decision Date: 08 December 1944
• Docket Number: Nos. 35, 36.,s. 35, 36.
• Citation: 40 A.2d 43
• Parties: LE VONAS v. ACME PAPER BOARD CO. FADO v. SAME.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

40 A.2d 43

LE VONAS

v.ACME PAPER BOARD CO.

FADO

v.SAME.

Nos. 35, 36.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 8, 1944.

Appeals from Baltimore City Court; Samuel K. Dennis, Chief Judge.

Separate actions by Andrew William Le Vonas and by Frederick James Fado against the Acme Paper Board Company and another for personal injuries. From judgments entered on directed verdicts for named defendant plaintiffs appeal.

Affirmed.

Lemuel Oliver, of Baltimore, for appellant in both cases.

Roszel C. Thomsen, of Baltimore (Clark, Thomsen & Smith, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee in both cases.

Before MARBURY, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, GRASON, MELVIN, BAILEY, CAPPER, and HENDERSON, JJ.

DELAPLAINE, Judge.

These suits were brought by Andrew William Le Vonas and Frederick James Fado, employees of an independent contractor, to recover for injuries alleged to have been caused by negligence of Acme Paper Board Company and Consolidated Gas, Electric Light & Power Company.

The cases were tried together before a jury in the Baltimore City Court, where plaintiffs testified that the paper board company had engaged Paul Pugh to hoist a number of steel beams from the edge of its field along the side of Big Falls Road at White Hall, Maryland, to the roof of its building, and that Pagh had employed them to do the work. On the morning of September 24, 1940, they began the work of moving the beams by means of a crane, with a boom 70 feet long, operated by a workman under their direction. They had loaded a number of beams on a truck, ready to be hauled to the building, and had just placed a 10-foot beam in the hooks of the steel cable hanging from the boom, with intention of putting that beam also on the truck, when Le Vonas told Fado to hold the beam from moving until he found where it belonged. Le Vonas then stooped over a blueprint for about five minutes to find the number of the beam which would locate its proper position in the roof. While the cable was hanging motionless within four feet of the main line of electric wires maintained by the Consolidated Gas, Electric Light & Power Company along the side of the road, Fado suddenly saw a blue flame jumping along the beam, and instantaneously he was knocked to the ground and burned by electricity. As he fell, the beam started to move. Le Vonas, seeing the beam drifting toward him, raised his hand to hold it, whereupon he too was shocked. At the close of their evidence, plaintiffs admitted the electric company was not liable. These appeals are from judgments entered upon directed verdicts in favor of the paper board company.

Plaintiffs contend that defendant was negligent because it did not warn them that the wires were dangerous. In 1869 Judge Alvey announced the general rule in Deford v. State, to Use of Keyser, 30 Md. 179, 205, that a property owner must exercise care that his property is so used and managed, whether by his own servants or by an independent contractor, that the mode of conducting his work will not cause injury to servants or other persons. But the property owner who invites other persons to come upon his premises is not an insurer of those persons against every possible accident. He must exercise merely such care as a reasonably careful and prudent person would exercise to guard against dangers under the circumstances so as to make the premises reasonably safe. He will not be held liable for injuries resulting from dangers which are as obvious or familiar to the person injured as to him. It is only when there is some concealed peril, known to the owner but not known to the person injured, which he has failed to warn against, that he will be held responsible. Pinehurst Co. v. Phelps, 163 Md. 68, 160 A. 736; Gordon v. Maryland State Fair, 174 Md. 466, 199 A. 519. On the other hand, an employee, in examining his surroundings, must use reasonable care to take notice of any obvious dangers; and, in performing his work, he must keep in mind the ordinary operation of familiar laws and govern himself accordingly. If he fails to do so, the risk is his own. If a defect is obvious and suggestive of danger, knowledge on the part of the employee will be presumed. State, to Use of Linton, v. Baltimore Mfg. Co., 109 Md. 404, 411, 72 A. 602.

If the owner employs an independent contractor to do certain work, he owes to employees of the contractor the same duty he would owe to employees of his own to furnish them a safe place to work. When the risk to which an employee is exposed arises from causes which are concealed, the employer is bound to notify him of them, provided that he himself knows them, or by the exercise of ordinary care ought to have known of them. But while the owner must exercise reasonable care to have his own plant safe for employees of his contractor, he does not stand in the shoes of the contractor, for manifestly, if he is concerned only in the general results of the work and has no control of the details and manner in which the work is to be accomplished, he should not be liable for injuries caused to employees of the contractor during the progress of the work. On the contrary, if the injury is such as might have been anticipated as a probable consequence of the work, and the employer took no precaution to prevent it, he can be held liable for negligence. In other words, liability for injuries to a servant of an independent contractor rests upon the owner when the premises on which the stipulated work is done remain under his control and the injuries arise out of the abnormally dangerous condition of the premises, the owner being chargeable with knowledge of the danger. Smith v. Benick, 87 Md. 610, 614, 41 A. 56, 42 L.R.A. 277; Weilbacher v. J. W. Putts Co., 123 Md. 249, 256, 91 A. 343, Ann.Cas.1916C, 115; Hess v. Bernheimer & Swartz, Pilsener Brewing Co., 219 N.Y. 415, 114 N.E. 808; Warner v. Synnes, 114 Or. 451, 230 P. 362, 235 P. 305, 44 A.L.R. 904.

In accordance with these basic principles, the law does not require that a person, who maintains even so deadly an instrumentality as a high voltage electric wire, shall anticipate at his peril every possible fortuitous circumstance under which some person might make a contact with the...