Dickson v. Hollister

Citations

• 123 Pa. 421
• 16 A. 484
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 665

Syllabus

<p>1. A property owner maintaining a coal-hole in a city sidewalk, is bound to know that persons will pass and repass and step upon the cover, not only in the day time but in the night time, without apprehending danger ; and he is therefore held to care and diligence in keeping it secure.</p> <p>2. To charge the owner of the premises with notice of its condition, in order to affect him with negligence, it is not necessary that the defect should be so notorious as to be evident to all pedestrians passing in the immediate neighborhood.</p> <p>3. As the cover is placed in the sidewalk, as part of it, for persons to tread upon, a passer-by is not chargeable with contributory negligence for failing to exercise such critical care as would involve an examination of its structure and adjustment, before stepping upon it.</p> <p>4. If the owner employ a blacksmith to adjust and secure the cover over the coal-hole, the blacksmith, being subject to the direction and control of his employer and liable to be dismissed at any time, is not an independent contractor for whose negligence the owner would not be liable.</p> <p>o. Where, in a wound received through the alleged negligence of the defendant, erysipelas supervened in a few days, the disease resulting from occult causes, not attributable to treatment, improper habits, or constitutional tendencies, it was not error to charge that even if the erysipelas was not the immediate result of the injury, it might nevertheless, be regarded as part of the injury itself.</p>