Whalen v. Rosnosky
| Decision Date | 15 May 1907 |
| Citation | 81 N.E. 282,195 Mass. 545 |
| Parties | WHALEN v. ROSNOSKY. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Fred L. Norton, for plaintiff.
Edward C. Stone, for defendant.
The plaintiff was a bright boy 17 years old. He began to work for the defendant as an errand boy on the morning of the day of his injury. After going on errands he was told by the defendant to open some wooden packing cases, and was given as tools with which to do it a hammer and hatchet, which were described by an expert witness called for the plaintiff as 'good, fair, ordinary trade' hatchet and hammer. The defendant told him that he could get the cover off quicker by hitting the hatchet under the cover. After a few strokes a piece of steel flew off and injured the plaintiff's eye. He was given no warning of danger.
There is nothing to show negligence on the part of the defendant. The tools furnished were proper. The thing he was told to do was one of the common operations of everyday life, free from complexity or complication and it was done in the usual way. Universal experience has stamped it as ordinarily a harmless act. Under these circumstances there was no duty resting on the employer to warn the employé.
The questions to the plaintiff's expert were properly excluded. The use of a hammer and hatchet in taking off a box cover can be comprehended by persons of average intelligence without the aid of experts. There is no mystery about the construction or use of either. In such a case the simplicity of common sense furnishes a safer guide than the niceties of technical knowledge.
Exceptions overruled.
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...testimony as to what might cause a person to lose his hold on a car moving rapidly over a poor track. Whalen v. Rosnosky, 195 Mass. 545, 547, 81 N. E. 282,122 Am. St. Rep. 271. But the answer was merely cumulative of other evidence, to the effect that the track was uneven and a car would lu......
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