Daves v. Southern Pacific Co.

Citations

• 98 Cal. 19
• 32 P. 708
• 1893 Cal. LEXIS 853

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Master and Servant—Fellow-servants —Grades oe Employment—Superior Servant.—The law of this state respecting the negligence of a fellow-servant, where there is no want of ordinary care upon the part of the employer, as set forth in section 1970 of the Civil Code, recognizes no distinction growing out of the grades of employment of the respective employees. nor does it give effect to the circumstance that the fellow-servant, through whose negligence the injury was received, was the superior of the plaintiff in the general service in which they were both employed.</p> <p>1b.—Duty of Railroad Company to Employees— Delegation of Performance— Risk of Service. —The duties which a railroad corporation owes to its servants, and which it is required to perform, are to furnish suitable machinery and appliances by which the service is to be performed, and to keep them in repair and order; to exercise ordinary care in the selection and retention of sufficient and competent servants to properly conduct the business in which the servant is employed, and to make such provisions for the safety of employees as will reasonably protect them against the dangers incident to their employment. The performance of these duties cannot be shifted by it to a servant so as to avoid responsibility for injury caused to another servant by its omission; nor is their negligent performance one of the ordinary risks of the service impliedly assumed by the employee by his contract of employment.</p> <p>Id.—Injury to Section Hand—Negligence of Eellow-servant—Action of Section Foreman—Test of Personal Duty of Employer.—Whether the negligent act of a section foreman of a railroad company, by which an accident is caused to a section hand, is a personal duty which the company owes to the section hand as its employee, or whether the accident is “in consequence of the negligence of another person employed by the same employer in the same general business,” within the meaning of section 1970 of