Santa Fe Pacific Railroad v. Holmes

Citations

• 202 U.S. 438
• 26 S. Ct. 676
• 50 L. Ed. 1094
• 1906 U.S. LEXIS 1545

Syllabus

<p>The duty of the master to furnish safe places for the employés to work in and safe appliances to work with is a continuing one to be exercised wherever circumstimces require it.</p> <p>While the duty of the master — in this case a railroad company — may be, and frequently is, discharged by one exercise it may recur at any moment in keeping trains in safe x-elation. A train dispatcher is not relieved, nor does he relieve the company, by the promulgation of an order; he must at all times know and guard against possible changes, and, under the circumstances of this case, held that a collision causing injuries to an engineer was the rqsult of the dispatcher’s xxegligence in failing to take into account and do what a prudent man would have taken into account and done.</p> <p>In this case the dispatcher was the representative of the company to promulgate orders for the running of trains and not a fellow servant of the engineer.</p>