Welsh v. Butz

Citations

• 202 Pa. 59
• 51 A. 591
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 463

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Master and servant — Instructions as to dangerous machine.</p> <p>The law imposes upon the master the duty of giving proper instructions to a young and inexperienced servant employed about a dangerous machine, and these instructions must be sufficient to enable a person of his youth and inexperience to perform his duty with safety. They may include information as to the manner in which the service may be safely performed; the risk incident to it and how it may be avoided; as well as an admonition against the dangers of carelessness. When an injury is sustained by a neglect of this duty the master is responsible.</p> <p>The knowledge of an employee that a machine is dangerous does not relieve the employer of the duty of instruction. It is only when the experience of the employee has been sufficient to give him the knowledge he would have acquired from proper instructions by the employer, that no negligence can be imputed to the employer for not giving such instructions.</p> <p>If there be two modes in which a duty can be discharged, one safe and the other dangerous, and if the servant be young and inexperienced, and be not instructed, it cannot be declared as a matter of law that the risk of making a wrong choice is one of the incidental risks which he accepted when he entered into the employer’s service. Much less can this be declared as matter of law where the young and inexperienced servant has no reason to infer from what he can see that there is a choice of methods.</p> <p>In an action by a girl thirteen years old against her employer to recover damages for personal injuries sustained while working at a cork machine, the case is for the jury where the evidence for the plaintiff, although contradicted, in many material matters, tends to show that the machine at which she worked was a dangerous one; that she had worked only seven days, prior to the day on which she was injured; that she was wholly inexperienced in such work; that she practically re