Houston v. Budke Stamping Co.

Citations

• 38 Pa. Super. 93
• 1909 Pa. Super. LEXIS 95

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Master and servant — Dangerous machine — Knowledge of danger — Notice to employer — Risk of employment.</p> <p>1. Where an employee is injured by the sudden irregular -working of a machine, at which he had been employed for four days without knowledge of its defective condition, he may in a suit against his employer show by the testimony of another employee, that the latter had worked at the same machine two months before the accident, that it had acted on several occasions in an erratic and dangerous way, and that he had notified the foreman who had charge of the machinery of the defect.</p> <p>2. Where a workman of mature years is placed at a machine, which without his knowledge had worked at times erratically and dangerously, and nothing in his age or experience, nor in the appearance of the machine could lead him to apprehend that the machine would suddenly act in a dangerous way, he cannot be charged with assuming the risk of such action of the machine.</p> <p>3. Where a workman was directed to work at a stamping machine, and on the first day of his employment the upper die fell, and the foreman charged that he had tramped the treadle, which he at first denied, but subsequently took it for granted that he had, as the machinist and others insisted that he had, the court cannot say as a matter of law that the workman assumed the risk by continuing at the machine after this single occurrence.</p>