Potter v. Richardson & Robbins Co.

Citations

• 29 Del. 314
• 6 Boyce 314
• 99 A. 540
• 1915 Del. LEXIS 73

Syllabus

<p>1. Master and Servant—Negligence—Evidence—Res Ipsa Loquitur.</p> <p>The negligence of the master cannot be presumed from the mere fact that the accident happened or that the injury was sustained in his service, but it is incumbent on the servant to show that the injury was caused by the breach of some duty which the master owed him.</p> <p>2. Master and Servant—Master’s Liability—Care Required.</p> <p>A master furnishing the carcasses of chickens in its canning factory to a servant employed in cleaning and cutting them was required to exercise reasonable and ordinary care; that is, such care as a reasonably prudent and careful person would have exercised under like circumstances to prevent injury or infection to the servant from their decayed condition. .</p> <p>3. Master and Servant—Injury—Liability.</p> <p>A master is not liable for injury to his servant resulting from accident of such a character that reasonable men, proceeding with reasonable caution, would not ordinarily have foreseen and anticipated it, such as an injury happening under very exceptional circumstances, although proper precautionary measures would have prevented it.</p> <p>4. Master and Servant—Master’s Liability—Insurer.</p> <p>While a master is liable to a servant for an injury resulting from his negligence, he is not an insurer of the servant’s safety, and is not bound to guard and protect him against all possible danger.</p> <p>5. Master and Servant—Master’s Liability—Assumption of Risk.</p> <p>A servant assumes the risks ordinarily incidental to his employment, and which are patent and known to him, and which he could know by the exercise of due care or which are as obvious to him as to the master.</p> <p>6. Master and Servant—Master’s Liability—Latent Danger.</p> <p>Even though the danger to a servant is latent and caused by a defect in something it was the master’s primary duty to furnish, the master will not be liable unless the defect was unknown to the servant, and not discoverable