Hooper v. Columbia & Greenville R. R.

Citations

• 21 S.C. 541
• 1884 S.C. LEXIS 125

Syllabus

<p>1. The rule laid down in Snow v. Housatonic Railroad Company, 8 Allen, 444, as to the duties of a railroad company towards its employes, approved.</p> <p>2. Quere: Where a railroad company requires a brakeman to ride upon the top of its train, and at the same time maintains a bridge with a top too low for such employe to pass through in safety without stooping, is this a danger incident to the employment of a brakeman, and is there a full performance of the duty imposed upon the company in regard to the safety of their employes?</p> <p>3. But an employe may waive the right to exact of his employer such appliances as the law requires, and, as a general rule, the acceptance or retention of service without complaint, after full knowledge of a permanent patent defect, amounts to a waiver of such defect.</p> <p>4. Therefore, where a brakeman on top of a train, in full daylight, was struck on the back of the head and killed by the top of a bridge through which he had passed daily for three months, and always stooped to avoid injury, the railroad company are not liable in damages to his administrator for negligence in permitting this bridge to remain as it was, and in failing to have danger-signal cords; and no special negligence in this case being shown, a non-suit was properly ordered.</p> <p>5. This case distinguished from Leisure v. Graniteville Manufacturing Company, 18 S. C., 276.</p> <p>6. The proof by plaintiff not authorizing a reasonable inference of negligence on the part of the railroad company, the non-suit.was proper.</p>