Wischam v. Rickards

Citations

• 136 Pa. 109
• 20 A. 532
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1017

Syllabus

<p>1. A servant cannot, by any act of his, impose upon his master a higher liability for negligence than the master is under to the servant himself; and one who assists such servant in his duties, at the servant’s request only, can have no other or different remedy against the master, for negligence, than the servant had.</p> <p>2. That the person assisting can have no higher rights than the servant in the performance of whose duties he joins has, is not so much because he is a volunteer, as because he makes himself one of a class, who, as against the master, have no right of recovery for the negligent acts or conduct of each other.</p> <p>8. Wherefore, as one who is engaged in the service of a common master, and in a common employment, cannot recover against the master for the negligence of a fellow-servant, whether paid for his. service or not, so, if a stranger join at the request of a servant and is injured, he is in no better position than a mere volunteer.</p> <p>4. Hor, when one joins in a service and is injured therein by the negligence of a servant, is the master’s liability increased by the fact that such assistance was rendered by the person injured, in obedience to an order of his own superior, made in response to a call proceeding from the servant to whom the assistance was given.</p> <p>5. The same rule will apply where the work, in the doing of which the injury is received, is one in which the master of the person injured, and the master to whose servant, in response to the servant’s call, the assistance of the injured party is rendered, are .jointly interested, and the servants of both are employed to accomplish it.</p> <p>6. Potter v. Faulkner, 1 B. & S. (101 E. C. L.) 800; Flower v. Penna. R. Co., 69 Pa. 210; Degg v. Railway Co., 1 H. & N. Exch. 773, followed : Abraham v. Reynolds, 5 H. & N. Exch. 143; and Wright v. Railway Co., L. R. 1 Q. B. Div. 252, distinguished.</p>