Case ID: nh_77/html/0391-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Walker, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Grafton,
    Nov. 4, 1914.
    John E. Smith v. American Woolen Co.
    A servant known by his employer to be mentally deficient may maintain an action for injuries resulting from a danger of the work-place to which he was negligently exposed and as to which he exercised the care of which he was capable.
    Case, for negligence. Transferred without a ruling from the April term, 1914, of the superior court by Pike, C. J., on the defendant’s demurrer to the declaration.
    
      Joseph Moore and Taggart, Burroughs, Wyman & McLane (Mr. Wyman orally), for the plaintiff.
    
      Scott Sloane (by brief and orally), for the defendant.
   Walker, J.

If, as it is alleged in the declaration, the defendant employed the plaintiff to work for it in a place where he was exposed to the danger of freezing his hands, and the defendant knew or had reason to know that on account of his being a non compos mentis he was liable to suffer serious injury from the inclemency of the weather while so employed, but nevertheless negligently exposed him to that hazard, while he exercised such care to protect himself as he was capable of exercising, and as a consequence he was injured by having his hands frozen, his right to maintain an action for the damage he suffered would be clearly apparent. Boyce v. Johnson, 72 N. H. 41.

Demurrer overruled.

All concurred.