Haynes v. Penfield

Citations

• 231 Pa. 329
• 80 A. 565
• 1911 Pa. LEXIS 843

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Master and servant — Contributory negligence — Disobedience of orders — Improper use of machine.</p> <p>1. One who recklessly encounters a known danger, and thereby directly contributes to his injury, cannot escape the effect of this negligence because the unknown negligence of the defendant, which concurred to produce the injury, made the danger greater than he supposed it was.</p> <p>2. In an action by a woman to recover damages for injuries to her hand, a nonsuit is properly entered where it appears that after the plaintiff had been instructed repeatedly not to place towels between ■ the rolls from the back of the mangle at which she worked, and had been warned of the danger in so doing, in attempting to place a towel between the rolls in disobedience of the instructions, her fingers were caught and injured as far as the first joints before the mangle was stopped; that a few seconds afterwards, and while her fingers were between the rolls, the mangle again started and her hand was drawn still further in and severely injured; that the mangle was stopped by shifting the belt; and there is testimony that the device for stopping the mangle was defective in such a way that the machine would start again unless pressure upon the treadle which shifted the belt was continued, of which defect the defendant had notice.</p> <p>3. In such a case the relation of the plaintiff’s negligence to her injury, as the proximate cause thereof, was not changed by any intervening act of the defendant, whose antecedent negligence was at most but a remote cause which increased the severity of the injury.</p> <p>4. An employer is under no duty to guard against the improper use of a machine.</p>