Valente v. American Bridge Co.

Citations

• 22 Del. 556
• 6 Penne. 556

Syllabus

<p>Personal Injuries— Negligence— Evidence — Pleading — Rules— Sufficient Number of Co-Employees—Primary Duties of Master—Instructions to Employee—Assumption of Risk— Fellow Servants—Jury to Determine.</p> <p>1. An averment of negligence contained in the plaintiff’s declaration, being simply that the employee, who was an Italian, did not understand English, and was put under the charge of people who did not understand Italian, held insufficient.</p> <p>2. Held, that the specifications contained in the plaintiff’s declaration did not show that the employments were such as that the question of an unsafe place would arise.</p> <p>3. The specifications in regard to rules contained in the declaration failing to show that any injury resulted from the absence of rules, held insufficient.</p> <p>4. A count in the declaration averred that the injury resulted from failure on the part of the defendant to employ a sufficient number of fellow servants to assist in the work that was being done. Held, sufficient, although the ignorance of the employee of the risk was not averred.</p> <p>5. If the servant is inexperienced and unacquainted with the dangers incident to the employment in which he is about to engage, it is the duty of the master to give him proper instructions as to the employment and to warn him against its dangers. The master may, in giving him such instructions and warnings, in the absence of knowledge to the contrary, assume that the servant has the knowledge and discernment which a person of his age and intelligence ordinarily possesses.</p> <p>6. The servant assumes no risk as to the primary duties of the master, but does assume all the ordinary risks incident to the employment, including the negligence of a fellow servant.</p> <p>7. The question, whether the persons engaged in loading iron columns on a car were, or were not, the fellow servants of the plaintiff engaged in painting the iron column which was first placed on the car, submitted to the jury for deter