Pittsburg Vitrified Paving & Building Brick Co. v. Fisher

Citations

• 79 Kan. 576
• 100 P. 507
• 1909 Kan. LEXIS 244

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Master and Servant—Injury to Employee—Unguarded Machinery—“Factory Act.” Where four men are employed to work at a certain machine in a manufacturing establishment, and the rules permit each one to take a turn at resting while the others work, a resting employee is engaged in the performance of duty the same as if he were occupied at the machine. •</p> <p>2. -■ Servant within the Scope of His Employment. While resting an employee may not needlessly wander from the proper sphere of his work into other departments of the establishment and be within the scope of his employment; but if no resting-place be prescribed and no boundaries be fixed within which he must confine himself he may use his discretion in selecting a place to rest, and may, with due circumspection, rightfully occupy any of the vacant pldces in the plant near his own machine and in touch with his work from which he is not expressly forbidden.</p> <p>3. - Same. In such a case the employer’s duty to guard machinery according to the factory act (Laws 1903, ch. 356) extends to all places which employees might reasonably be expected to use in the performance of their duties, including the taking of turns at resting.</p> <p>4. - Same. In this case it is held to be a jury question whether a resting employee who was injured by an unguarded set-screw located twenty-five or thirty feet from his own machine was at an unauthorized place.</p> <p>5. - Contributory Negligence. An employee within the scope of his employment may assume that set-screws revolving so rapidly they are not visible have been guarded according to the provisions of the factory act and need not inspect machinery for them; and if he is injured by coming in contact with such a set-screw, of whose existence and danger he is ignorant, he is not guilty of contributory negligence.</p> <p>6. Damages—Pecuniary Expectancy of Parents from Continued Life of a Son. Under the facts of this case it is held that a father and