Farmer v. Kearney

Citations

• 115 La. 722
• 39 So. 967
• 1905 La. LEXIS 726

Syllabus

<p>1. Master and Servant — Injuries to Servant-Superintendence.</p> <p>Responsibility of contractors for injury received by workmen rests upon their freedom of action in respect to selection of and to superintendence over the latter. When the individual workmen, instead of allowing matters to take their usual shape and course, make it a condition of their accepting service that the contractor will yield in their favor this right of freedom of action, they absolve him from the responsibility which otherwise would be thrown upon him, and look to that of their own selected agencies.</p> <p>2. Same — Superintendence oe Labor Organization.</p> <p>When the workmen delegate to a labor organization which they have joined (and others in privity with it) this right of selection and superintendence, they agree, so far as the contractor is concerned, to accept the membership of their fellow workmen in their respective organizations, and the action of those associations is, ipso facto, good and sufficient guaranty to them for their individual safety and protection.</p> <p>If they deem membership in organizations as conferring benefits upon them, they cannot accept the benefits and repudiate the resulting legal disadvantages.</p> <p>Neither justice nor reason would justify throwing upon contractors responsibility in favor of parties for acts over which they have themselves taken control.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>