Greinert v. Lamont Investment Co.

Citations

• 76 Wash. 82
• 135 P. 817
• 1913 Wash. LEXIS 1790

Syllabus

<p>Master and Servant — Defective Appliances — Contributory Negligence. The master is not liable to an employee, digging a well, who disregarded instructions to hoist excavated material in a bucket, but hoisted pieces of rock tied to the rope, which thereby became wet and worn, of which he alone had notice, so that the hook did not grip as it did before, but slipped and caused him to fall when being raised from the well.</p> <p>Same — Safe-Appliances—Simple Devices. An employee digging a well, who fell when being raised because a loop in the rope, formed in a particular way, slipped and left his foot without support, cannot recover because of failure to furnish safe instrumentalities for the work; since the loop could be safely formed in a number of simple ways as well known to the servant as to the master.</p> <p>Same — Safe Appliances — Contract—Duty to Provide. One hired to dig a well and sent to the place with the statement that a third person would get him “anything he needed,” cannot complain of the devices adopted for hoisting; since, if he chose to adopt the devices already installed, he made them his own.</p> <p>Same — Proximate Cause. Negligence of the master in failing to provide a new bucket to hoist excavated material from a well is not the proximate cause of the accident, where an employee was injured when a loop in the rope slipped as he was being hoisted from the well.</p>