Reing v. Broadway Railway Co.

Headnote

Master aro servart—Duty of master—Liability of.

The plaintiff was told by a co-employee to clean a roof from snow, and after doing his work, on his return to the ground to avoid a snow drift at the bottom of the ladder, he jumped off on the side of the ladder and fell into a skylight in the roof, which was so covered with snow that it could not be seen. Held, that the defendant was not liable. That the master

was not bound to notify a servant against a skylight in a roof suddenly covered by a heavy fall of snow. An employee assumes all the risk of the employment. Although the plaintiff was a changer of horses, when he shovelled off the roof he took the risk of that employment also.

Appeal from a judgment in favor of the defendant entered upon the dismissal of the complaint upon the merits at the close of the plaintiff’s testimony.

The defendant is the owner of a stable in the city of Brooklyn, where it keeps its horses and cars. It is a one-story building (except one portion of it in which there is a hay loft), and it is lighted by skylights in the roof. The different portions of the building are known as the horse stable, hitching or changing room (where the horses are harnessed), carpenter shop, car house and hay loft. The roof of the carpenter shop and hitching room is a few feet higher than the roof of the car stable. The plaintiff entered the employment of the defendant as stableman in August, 1885; he continued in this work until April, 1886, when he was made a changer; that is, he harnessed horses and took them out to the cars and brought the horses in from the cars and unharnessed them, and sometimes drove the horses attached to the cars into the car stable.

He remained at this kind of work from April to December 9, 1886, the day of the injury. All parts of this building, except the hay loft, are lighted by skylights in the roof. Upon the roof of the car house there are fourteen skylights, and they are about four feet nine inches long and four feet six inches wide.

There had been a severe storm and the foreman of the stable, one Eckert, told the plaintiff to go up to the roof of the hitching room and clean the snow off the skylights; the plaintiff went up a ladder into the hay loft, passed through the loft and went out one of its windows upon the roof of the car house, climbed up a short ladder, which was there, on to the roof of the carpenter shop, thence walked to the roof of the hitching room, where he cleaned off the snow upon six skylights and put some salt in two leaders running from the roof. This occupied him about an hour.

After finishing this work he started to return the way he had come up; he had in his hands a pail, a broom and a shovel; he crossed the roof of the carpenter shop, threw the pail, broom and shovel on the car house roof, passed down the ladder, but instead of continuing to the foot of the ladder, he stepped off it to the right and fell through one of the skylights, the edge of which was a foot and a half from the ladder, and the whole of which was covered with snow, and fell to the ground and was injured.