Majority
p. 913Margaret E. Cregan, Adm’rx, Resp’t, v. William H. Marston et al., App’lts. (Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department Filed July 18, 1890.)
Headnote
1. Master and servant — Duty of master to supply proper tools.The duty of supplying proper machinery to employees rests on the master and cannot be so delegated as to shift responsibility.
3. Same.
The fact that sound machinery could have been obtained and used by the person in charge of the work upon application, is not enough to relieve the master from responsibility.
Appeal from judgment in favor of plaintiff, entered upon verdict.
Patrick Cregan, plaintiff’s husband, was in defendants' employment shovelling coal into buckets in the hold of a canal boat which was lying at defendants’ dock in Brooklyn. These buckets as they were filled were hoisted by means of a hoisting tackle, consisting of a rope-fall, moved by a steam engine. When one of the buckets’was being hoisted the rope-fall broke and the bucket filled with coal fell upon Oregan, killing him instantly.
It was proved, and not disputed at the trial, that to do the hoisting of the buckets, the defendants had bought suitable rope of the very best quality obtainable in the market, at the highest price and from manufacturers of the very best reputation; that they cut this rope up into pieces of suitable length, called “falls,” and that they always kept these “falls ” on hand in readiness for use, so that one “fall” could replace the other the instant there was need. It was the duty of the engineer, also a servant of the defendant, to care for the hoisting machinery and gear, and to replace the “ falls ” with new ones when necessary. Two days before the accident (Sunday intervening) the engineer examined the “ fall ” and decided it fit to be continued in use.
The court charged that if it was careless in the engineer to continue the further use of the rope, defendants were liable. If it was not careless, but a mere error of judgment, they were not, “because the master is not a guarantor as to the tools furnished that they shall be safe; he only contracts that they shall not be unsafe through negligence or carelessness on his part, or on the part of employees to whom he entrusts that department of his business.”
0. Godfrey Patterson, for app’lts; Charles J. Patterson, for resp’t
The cases of Daley v. R. R., 147 Mass., 101 ; Baker v. R. R., 95 Pa. St., 211 , and Indiana Car Co. v. Parker, 100 Ind.,
p. 914
181 , are all in point to show that the circuit judge properly laid down the law to the jury. The general principle on which those cases go is well settled in the courts of this state.
The duty of supplying proper machinery to employees rests upon the master and cannot he so delegated as to shift the responsibility.
The rule is a beneficent one and any restriction of it would be contrary to sound policy and principles of humanity.
The fact that sound machinery could have been obtained and used by the engineer, upon application, is not enough to relieve defendants from responsibility.
The charge to the jury was as favorable to defendants as they had a right to demand, and the judgment must be affirmed, with costs.
Barnard, P. J., and' Dykman, J., concur.