Evans v. Louisiana Lumber Co.

Citations

• 111 La. 534
• 35 So. 736
• 1903 La. LEXIS 555

Syllabus

<p>INJURY TO EMPLOYE—NEGLIGENCE OF VICE PRINCIPAL—CORPORATIONS—ACTS OF AGENTS—LIABILITY.</p> <p>1. The danger was not open and apparent. The accident was caused by the carelessness and negligence of one of the employes, who suddenly started one of the appliances moved by steam power.</p> <p>2. The employe was not the fellow servant of the person injured. He directed the appliance, while the person injured was in a subordinate position, obeying his directions, and assisting as a laborer in the work directed by the employs. The employs in charge of a particular work represented the master.</p> <p>3. The person injured had given the usual signal when he commenced to work near the appliance (the manipulation of which caused the accident). It devolved upon the employe, in the exercise of proper prudence, not to start the appliance before being certain that the laborer who was injured had gotten out of the way.</p> <p>4. The laborer injured was in open view of the employe who had charge of the steam lever. It was negligence on his (the employe’s) part not to have looked before turning his lever.</p> <p>5. It is incumbent upon employes standing for the principal not to permit a workman, if it be evident that he is not a fit person to do the work to which he is assigned, to continue in the work even at his (the laborer’s) request.</p> <p>0. The foreman’s attention had been called to the slow and awkward movement of the laborer who was a short time afterward injured.</p> <p>On Rehearing.</p> <p>7. When corporations undertake to engage in dangerous occupations, they assume certain primary obligations to secure the safety not only of “strangers,” but of parties with whom they have contract relations. From the circumstance that they are intellectual beings, and cannot personally transact the business they have the legal right to do, it becomes necessary that they should intrust to others the direction and care of their affairs, whose acts of administration in their respective s