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John Walsh, administrator, vs. Turner Centre Dairying Association

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court1916-03-07
223 Mass. 386

Summary

Holding. The court affirmed the judgment sustaining the defendant's demurrer. The complaint failed to allege sufficient facts to establish a cause of action, as it did not adequately show that the danger was not obvious to ordinary observation or that the employer had actual knowledge of the employee's peril regarding a hazard on premises outside the employer's control.

An employee of a milk delivery company was injured when he fell into an unmarked elevator well while making a delivery at a building not owned or controlled by his employer. The administrator of the employee's estate sued the employer for damages based on conscious suffering before death. The court examined whether the complaint adequately stated a cause of action in tort under the applicable employment law.

The court established the legal framework governing an employer's duty to warn employees of dangerous conditions. When the danger exists on the employer's own premises, the employer must warn the employee if the danger is not obvious and the employer knows or should know both of the danger and the employee's ignorance of it. However, when the danger exists on premises belonging to someone else and outside the employer's control, the employer's duty is more limited—it extends only to warning the employee if the employer has actual knowledge of the specific danger and reason to believe the employee is unaware of it. The court found the complaint failed to allege that the elevator well was non-obvious or that the employer had actual knowledge of the employee's peril.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Employer's duty to warn of dangerous conditions on third-party premises
  • Whether obviousness of danger affects employer's duty to warn
  • Sufficiency of complaint pleading in employment injury case
  • Effect of workers' compensation statute on common law negligence duty

Procedural posture

The defendant filed demurrers to the counts of the complaint, which were sustained; the plaintiff failed to amend to meet the specific objections, and the final demurrer was upheld.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Pierce, J.

The plaintiff has waived the counts numbered one, three, five and seven. The only question now presented is whether the remaining counts, when considered singly or collectively, state upon well pleaded facts a cause of action in tort for the conscious suffering of the intestate preceding his death.

The facts as stated in one or all of the counts disclose that the intestate was on the day of his injury, November 23, 1914, in the employ of the defendant as a servant to deliver milk as he might be sent on premises not stated to be of the defendant or within its control; that on November 23, 1914, the intestate was sent to deliver milk in a building on State and Commerce streets in Boston; that while so engaged he was precipitated into a certain opening or elevator well in that building of which the intestate was ignorant and of which the defendant knew or should have known by the exercise of due care, and that the defendant was not a subscriber under St. 1911, c. 751, or any act in addition thereto or in amendment thereof.

It is to be observed that no one of the counts states facts from which it may be seen or inferred that the opening or elevator well was dangerous in itself by reason of improper construction, situation, want of safeguarding or absence of light.

Nor are any facts stated from which it may be seen or inferred’ that the dangers attendant upon its situation or use, if such there were, were not open, obvious and apparent to ordinary even casual observation.

Where the dangerous condition of place or thing is upon the premises of the master, the duty to warn exists as a legal obligation when the danger is not obvious and when the master knows or should know the danger and of the ignorance of the employee. Rooney v. Sewall & Day Cordage Co. 161 Mass. 153. Pembroke v. Cambridge Electric Light Co. 197 Mass. 477. If the danger be ob vious the master owes no duty to warn, at least unless he should have actual knowledge of the servant’s ignorance of the danger.

Where the danger incident to the employment is upon premises of a person other than the master, over which the master has neither right nor power to exercise authority or control, the master owes no duty dther than to warn his servant of the danger if he, the master, has actual knowledge of the dangerous condition and also has reason to believe the servant is ignorant thereof. Hughes v. Malden & Melrose Gas Light Co. 168 Mass. 395. Moynihan v. King’s Windsor Cement Dry Mortar Co. 168 Mass. 450. Regan v. Donovan, 159 Mass. 1. O’Malley v. New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad, 210 Mass. 344.

If the danger be open and obvious to the ordinary inspection of the servant, the servant’s mere ignorance of the dangerous situation or condition does not enlarge the master’s duty. Gleason v. Smith, 172 Mass. 50.

Demurrers were filed to the several counts allowed in amendment to the count numbered two in the original declaration, collectively taken to be intended to state a single cause of action, specifically pointing out the objections thereto as required by R. L. c. 173, § 14. The plaintiff has not met the specific objections by amendment to his declaration. The final demurrer was therefore rightly sustained, unless within the counts all facts necessary to establish the cause of action intended to be brought are set out with substantial certainty.

:Upon the state of facts here disclosed, the plaintiff must allege and prove, not as a matter of form but of substance, that the dangerous place was a situation or condition not actually or constructively obvious to the intestate and that the defendant either had control of the premises upon which the opening or well was or had actual knowledge of the intestate’s peril.

The plaintiff’s contention is in substance that the defendant’s duty and obligation were enlarged by St. 1911, c. 751. But that act takes away some of the employer’s defences. It does not transform conduct theretofore lawful on the part of the employer into negligence. Ashton v. Boston & Maine Railroad, 222 Mass. 65.

Judgment affirmed.