Flaherty v. McClintic-Marshall Construction Co.

Citations

• 243 Pa. 580
• 90 A. 342
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 669

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Master and servant — Dangerous employment — Obvious danger — Reliance on master’s judgment — Assumption of rish.</p> <p>1. A servant assumes the risks naturally and reasonably incident to his employment of which he has knowledge and comprehension. If his master engage his services for a hazardous employment and he does not know by observation or experience of the perils attending it, the master is responsible for any injuries resulting from the risk, but this rule has no application where the .servant has full knowledge of his dangerous position and knows as well how to avoid the danger as his master. If he accept the hazardous employment under such circumstances, he assumes the risk incident to the service.</p> <p>' 2. The rule that the servant has a right to rely upon his master’s judgment and may recover for the injuries he sustains while in the performance of his work has no- application where the danger is immediate and imminent and the plaintiff knows the fact.</p> <p>3. In an action against an employer, a construction company, for damages for personal injuries resulting from plaintiff’s being overcome by gas while working upon the roof of an electric blast furnace not owned or operated by defendant, the plaintiff will he held to have assumed the risk where it appears that he had continued his work for three days after he knew, of the presence of the gas and its effect upon him, and that the conditions were dangerous; that during this period he had frequently been forced to stop work on account of the gas; that defendant’s agent had told him that he could work there only for half an hour at a time, and that he had also been notified by other workmen of the danger; and that the defendant was not operating and had no control over the blast furnaces and was not responsible for the presence of the gas.</p> <p>4. In such a ease the plaintiff is not relieved from the imputation of the assumption of risk by the fact that as soon as he smelled gas he h