Dobra v. Lehigh Valley Coal Co.

Citations

• 250 Pa. 313
• 95 A. 465
• 1915 Pa. LEXIS 942

Syllabus

<p>■Negligenee — Mines and mining — Personal injuries — Violation of .Anthracite Coal Mine Act of June 2, 1891, P. L. 176 — Right of parent to recover — Common law liability — Duties of mine owner— Assumption of rislc.</p> <p>1. Where the negligenee charged and proven is the disregard oi a statutory duty, the defense of assumption of risk is not open to defendant.</p> <p>2. The responsibility for the care of the passageways in a mine rests upon the owner, and cannot be shifted to the mine foreman.</p> <p>3. A parent cannot recover damages for personal injuries sustained by a minor child and not resulting in death, in consequence of a mine owner’s violation of the Anthracite Coal Mine Act of June 2, 1891, P. L..176, giving a right of action to “the party injured” for “direct damages.” The damage to the parent is indirect and the parent’s right of action must rest upon the common law.</p> <p>4. In order to overcome the defense of assumption of risk in an action under the common law, the employee must show affirmatively not only that he complained of the danger, and that the employer promised to correct it, but that, in continuing to work, he relied on that promise, otherwise he must be held to have assumed the risk.</p> <p>5. In an action by a minor, seventeen years of age, and his mother, to recover damages for injuries sustained by the minor, it appeared that the minor was employed as a coal runner in defendant’s anthracite coal mine, and was injured by being caught and squeezed between the side of a car and certain mine props which were negligently maintained too close to the tracks, in one of the gangways, in violation of the Act of June 2,1891, P. L. 176. There was evidence that plaintiff had complained of the condition to defendant’s superintendent, and that the latter had promised to remove the props. Plaintiff did not say, however, that he relied on the alleged promise in continuing his work. There was evidence that defendant knew of the alleged obstruction in