Smith v. Hillside Coal & Iron Co.

Citations

• 186 Pa. 28
• 40 A. 287
• 1898 Pa. LEXIS 955

Syllabus

<p>■Negligence — Master and servant — Duty to give instruction.</p> <p>A master’s duty to give adequate instructions to such of his employees, as from age, inexperience or other sufficient cause, are ignorant of the dangers of their employment, is similar in its nature to that required in the employment of competent fellow workmen and furnishing safe machinery. These are all duties which the master owes to his servants, and from which he can relieve himself only by performance. They cannot be delegated so as to make the omission to give them negligence of a fellow-servant.</p> <p>In an action by a boy thirteen years and six months old against his employer, a mining corporation, to recover damages for jjersonal injuries, the case is for the jury where the evidence for the plaintiff, although contradicted, was in effect that his duty at the time of the accident was to sand the track in front of the wheels of an electric motor in a mine; that the occupation was a dangerous one, and that the plaintiff was given no instructions in regard to the work.</p>