Benson v. English Lumber Co.

Citations

• 71 Wash. 616
• 129 P. 403
• 1913 Wash. LEXIS 1376

Syllabus

<p>Death — Actions for Wrongful Death — Consolidation—Statutes — Construction. Rem. & Bal. Code, § 183, giving the heirs or personal representatives of one killed a right of action for wrongful death, authorizes but one suit, to be prosecuted in a single proceed*ing; hence separate actions by different heirs are properly consolidated.</p> <p>Master and Servant — Injuries—Evidence—Question for Jury. The question of the negligence of a logging company is for the jury, where it appears that, in hauling in a heavy log which struck a mound of earth, a steel hook broke, striking and killing a servant, and that the hook was made of an inferior grade of steel and had a defect known as a “cold shut,” which could be easily detected by the blacksmith making it, and which made the hook much more liable to break than one properly made of high grade steel.</p> <p>Same — Safe Appliances — Fellow Servants. No question of fellow servants arises, where the jury could find a violation of the master’s primary duty to furnish a reasonably safe appliance.</p> <p>Same — Safe Appliances — Assumption of Risks — Reliance on Assurance. The servant does not assume the risk of danger from the master’s furnishing an appliance with inherent defects of which the servant had no knowledge, and which a superior servant assured him Was all right.</p> <p>Same — Contributory Negligence of Servant — Proximate Cause —Evidence—Question for Jury. Contributory negligence being an affirmative defense, with, the burden of proof upon the defendant, and the question being for the jury where the testimony raises an uncertainty upon which reasonably fair-minded men will differ, the court cannot say that a man employed in logging as a “chaser” was guilty of contributory negligence, as a matter of law, in standing where he was struck when a defective hook broke; since the proximate cause of the injury was for the jury, even if contributory negligence was a remote cause or a mere condition of it; and the court could