Fullick v. South Penn Oil Co.

Citations

• 260 Pa. 4
• 103 A. 506
• 1918 Pa. LEXIS 458

Syllabus

<p>Negligence• — Master and servant — Moving, machinery — Insufficient guards — Safe place to worh — Proximate cause — Appliances not in ordinary use — Burden of proof — Contributory negligence— Assumption of risJc- — •Obvious danger — Proximate cause — Two causes — Guessing by jury — Case for jury.</p> <p>1. A jury may not be permitted to guess at the cause of an injury and where the proven facts indicate two or more possible causes, for only one of which defendant could be responsible, there can be no recovery? but where the facts fairly warrant the inference that the cause for which defendant is responsible proximately resulted in the injury to the exclusion of all other conditions, a finding'for plaintiff will be sustained. -</p> <p>2. While a master is not bound to use the newest and best appliances in the conduct of his business, it is his duty to furnish those of usual character and reasonable safety, the test of negligence being the ordinary usages of the business.</p> <p>3. While an employer charged with negligence in respect to the kind of appliances furnished his employees disproves want of care by showing that the appliances are such as are used ordinarily in the business, failure to use such appliances ordinarily used by others in the same business is not necessarily negligence, as such a rule would forbid the use of newer and safer methods; and where the machinery is not such as is ordinarily used the burden is on the plaintiff to show that it was more dangerous than that customarily employed.</p> <p>4. An employee assumes the risk of the ordinary dangers of his employment, not the risk incurred by the employer’s negligence in failing to perform the duties imposed upon him by law, one of which is to provide reasonably safe tools and machinery with which to work.</p> <p>5. In an action against an employer to recover for personal imjiirieS sustained by 'an employee while engaged in connecting a clutch lever of a gas engine with a gasoline compressor, whe