Wilson v. Chess & Wymond Co.
| Decision Date | 05 February 1904 |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Wilson v. Chess & Wymond Co. |
APPEAL FROM JEFFERSON CIRCUIT COURT, LAW AND EQUITY DIVISION.
JUDGMENT FOR DEFENDANT AND PLAINTIFF APPEALS. AFFIRMED.
M. W. RIPY, BENNETT H. YOUNG, MATT O'DOHERTY AND EDWIN C. WAIDE, ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT.
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
PIRTLE, TRABUE & COX, FOR APPELLEE.
This appeal is from a judgment rendered upon a verdict returned in favor of appellee under a peremptory instruction. The action was brought by Wilson, a minor about eighteen years old, by his guardian, for damages sustained by Wilson about November 21, 1898, in falling into a tank of boiling water at appellee's stave factory. In his petition, plaintiff complained that, alongside of the tank where he was working, ice had formed, making it dangerous for him to stand. His duties were to place unfinished kegs in the water in the tank, where they were boiled or soaked so that the staves could be bent into permanent curved shape without breaking them. The negligence alleged against appellee is that it, as master and employer, did not furnish suitable and proper covering or protection for the tank, to guard plaintiff against falling into the water, and in permitting the ice to be and remain where plaintiff had to stand in doing his work. It is claimed that the duty of the master was to furnish the laborer a safe place in which to work.
The tank in question was about ten feet long by six feet wide by three and one-half feet deep. It was built of wood, and its top was entirely open. The water, which mostly filled it, was heated with steam to about a boiling heat. By nailing wooden slats across the top of the tank, leaving space enough to put in and take out the kegs, it would have made the situation much safer for the workman.
The duty of the master to furnish a safe, or reasonably safe, place in which the laborer may do his work, is frequently either misunderstood or misapplied. In the first place, the master is not required to furnish an absolutely safe place. If the work is in and of itself dangerous, the master does not insure against such danger. On the contrary, there is nothing better settled than that the servant assumes the ordinary risks and hazards incident to the character of his work. Whatever may be the moral obligation resting upon those who employ people in hazardous work to furnish them the safest possible means to protect them from injury, the law does not forbid a laborer's undertaking a hazardous...
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