Pennsylvania R. R. v. Roydhouse

Citations

• 267 Pa. 368
• 110 A. 277
• 1920 Pa. LEXIS 866

Syllabus

<p>Contracts — Indemnity against accident — Negligence—Increased risk — Notice of suit to subcontractor — Record—Railroads—Construction work — Repair of station — Passenger.</p> <p>1. Where contractors enter into a contract and covenant “to provide and make all proper, necessary and sufficient precautions, safeguards and protections” against the happening of any accident during the progress of the work, and to indemnify and save harmless the indemnitee “from the payment of all sums of money by reason of all or any such accidents,” the contractors are not insurers as to any accident that may happen in the course of the work, but only as to such as may occur through failure to provide proper, necessary and sufficient safeguards in nd about the work.</p> <p>2. The parties adopted for their rule of conduct the common acceptation of the meaning of the term negligence, — -lack of ordinary care under the circumstances. To charge the contractors with liability, it is not enough to show that the indemnitee paid out money on account of an accident, but it must appear that the accident occurred through the failure of the indemnitor to provide sufficient safeguards, — in other words, negligence or the failure to use care by the indemnitor, its agent, employees or subcontractor.</p> <p>3. The limit of the indemnitor’s liability embraced the indemnitee’s liability to strangers invited on the premises in the usual and ordinary use of it, but the indemnitee could not increase the hazard by adding additional burdens on the indemnitor; if by special invitation or direction, the traveling public were requested to use the premises worked over, to such, an extent as to materially interfere with the contractor’s work, and the indemnitor was subjected to an increased risk not contemplated by the contract nor by the nature and condition of the work that he undertook and must have expected, such interference would cast the primary responsibility on plaintiff, from whom a recovery was had. S