Rustan v. Southern Alaska Canning Co.

Citations

• 119 Wash. 350
• 205 P. 369
• 1922 Wash. LEXIS 757

Syllabus

<p>Master and Servant (111) — Injuries to Servant — Contributory Negligence — Duty to Discover Defects. A ship carpenter engaged in enlarging a hole in a roof is not guilty of contributory negligence, as a matter of law, in choosing the more direct way to his work and in stepping into a tank of hot water, where the top of the tank, which had been covered with boards, was one of the steps up, a board had been removed, the light was poor, and the tank was filled with hot water for the first time, all without his knowledge, where it appears that the other route to the roof was still more dangerous.</p> <p>Same (98) — Assumption of Risks — Knowledge—Making Place Safe. In such a case, the rule that a servant assumes the risk of working in a place which he was engaged in making safe has no application, since his work had nothing to do with making the place safe.</p> <p>Master and Servant (104-1) — Negligence (26) — Statutory Provisions — Comparative Negligence — Relative Degrees — Damages. In an action by a servant for personal injuries based on the comparative negligence statute of Alaska, it is error to instruct that, if the negligence of the plaintiff was gross and the proximate cause of the accident, he could not recover; and to refuse defendant’s request to instruct that, if both parties were negligent and the plaintiff’s negligence slight and defendant’s gross, then the actual damages should be reduced in proportion to the amount of negligence chargeable to the plaintiff.</p>