Martin v. Niles-Bement-Pond Co.

Citations

• 214 Pa. 616
• 64 A. 370
• 1906 Pa. LEXIS 709

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Master and servant — Unforeseen accident — Place of employment.</p> <p>An employer when charged with negligence after an accident has happened, is not to be deemed negligent for not having anticipated what no one else, under the circumstances, would have anticipated.</p> <p>That which has never happened before, and which is not of such a character that prudent men ought naturally to guard against its happening at all, cannot, when’ it does happen, furnish a good ground for a charge of negligence in not foreseeing its possible happening and guarding against what no one could have foreseen.</p> <p>In an action by an employee against .his employer to recover damages for personal injuries, it appeared that the accident happened when the plaintiff was engaged in erecting a scaffold. While engaged on work far above the level of the floor of the room in which the scaffold was placed, he knelt down and extended one of his legs backward until it came into contact with the revolving shaft, and his overalls were caught in a projecting set screw, and his leg was crushed. The revolving shaft was far above the reach of the employees generally, and plaintiff’s work had nothing to do in connection with it. Plaintiff testified that he did not know that the shaft was there and that it was too dark for him to see it. Held, that the evidence was insufficient to establish negligence on the part of the defendant.</p>