Schwaninger v. E. J. McNeeley & Co.

Citations

• 44 Wash. 447
• 87 P. 514

Syllabus

<p>Master and Servant — Negligence—Safe Appliances — Instructions. An instruction that the master is not an insurer of the safety of its employees, but that the law requires that it furnish a safe place, etc., sufficiently complies with the request for an instruction that it is not an insurer of the safety and sufficiency of the appliances employed, and was not required to anticipate accidental happenings.</p> <p>Same — Compliance With Factory Act. Where an action for injuries sustained through the failure to maintain reasonable safeguards is tried as an action at common law without any reference to the factory act, it is not error to refuse an instruction to the effect that no statute required the use of such safeguards.</p> <p>Same — -Duties of Servant — Instructions. An instruction relating to the duty to warn a servant of unknown dangers, where he is called from his ordinary duties, is sufficiently within the issues where a servant, whose regular duty was that of fireman, was injured in the adjustment of a belt, through dangers unknown to him, where he had been employed but a short time, although he had frequently adjusted the belt; as the complaint may be presumed amended to conform to proof of such facts, admitted without objection.</p> <p>Trial — Instructions as to Issues. It is not error to fail to instruct specifically that the defendant controverted the material facts of the complaint by denials, where it appears that the jury must have so understood the issues.</p> <p>Master and Servant — Fellow Servants. There is no question of fellow servant involved where an employee was injured by defects in appliances causing the throwing of a belt, merely by reason of the fact that a witness thought the accident due to the inexperience of another employee who adjusted the belt upon the pulley on the floor above, where it appears that the accident did not occur until after such adjustment had been made and when the two employees were doing nothing in common; and wher