Case ID: nys_21/html/0177-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      PRATT, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HENSHAW v. POND’S EXTRACT CO.
    (Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department.
    December 12, 1892.)
    Injury to Servant—Negligence of Coemploye. Where an employe in a factory, while engaged in oiling a machine, is injured by its being set in motion by the engineer, as the negligence is that of a coemploye, the person injured cannot recover from the employer.
    Appeal from circuit court, Queens county.
    Action by Charles D. Henshaw against the Pond’s Extract Company for personal injuries. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
    Plaintiff was employed by defendant to work at a cutting machine with revolving knives, which was moved by an engine in an adjoining building. Plaintiff was engaged in oiling the machine, the engine having been stopped, and it was started without warning to him, and he was cut by the knives. • Plaintiff contended that defendant was negligent in not having a loose.pulley, so as to render the machine independent of the power, and controllable by those in charge of it, and also in not having the knives on the machine protected by a guard, as was usual with such machines. He also contended that there should have been a bell rope or some other means of communication between the engine room and the man at the machine; and that the engineer, who was not regularly employed in that capacity, was incompetent.
    Argued before DYKMAN and PRATT, JJ.
    Roger M. Sherman, for appellant.
    Billings & Cardozo, for respondent.
   PRATT, J.

The defendant’s machine was stopped to be oiled, and, while plaintiff was engaged in oiling it, the engineer put it in motion, whereby the plaintiff was injured. The accident was caused by the action of the engineer, a coemploye, for which the employer is not liable to a fellow servant. We do not find that negligence of defendant was shown, and must affirm the nonsuit. Judgment affirmed, with costs.