Vanesse v. Catsburg Coal Co.

Citations

• 159 Pa. 403
• 28 A. 200
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 1527

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Mines and mining — Master and servant.</p> <p>In an action against a mine owner to recover damages for personal injuries caused by the fall of a large piece of coal and slate from the roof of a gangway, it is proper to submit the ease to the jury on the question of defendant’s negligence where there is evidence that defendant was constructing a tunnel or gangway into his mine; that ordinary care required testing for loose and fractured pieces of coal, and that these should be knocked down; that this work of “making safe” was done under the immediate supervision of defendant’s-superintendent; that some of the loose and fractured pieces of coal had not been removed from the part of the gangway in which plaintiff was directed to work, and that one of these pieces fell upon him and injured him.</p> <p>In such a case it was for the jury to say, not whether the employer had adopted the very best method of constructing a gangway, but whether he had exercised care, according to the circumstances, in providing a gangway which was reasonably safe for his own workmen to work in or pass and re-pass to their work.</p> <p>Contributory negligence — Duty of inspection by employee.</p> <p>A workman, who sees an apparently safe gangway in a mine, with new timbers just put in place, and knows that under the eye of his employer, an experienced miner, a gang of workmen have just finished “ making it safe ” for him and his fellows, and then is commanded by his employer to work in a particular place in it, is not required to enter upon an inspection of the space between the timbers to determine whether those who had but a short time before tested it had performed their duty with care.</p>