Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/201/201mass91.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 14:56:20+00:00

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MERRILL DAVIS vs. JOHN L. WHITING & SON COMPANY; SAME vs. ABRAM F. GRANT.
Negligence, Of one controlling real estate, Due care of plaintiff, Violation of ordinance as evidence of negligence. Nuisance. Evidence. Practice, Civil, Verdict.
One in control of a building, which is furnished with fire shutters, who has made a contract with a painter by which the painter agreed to paint all the shutters on the building for a price named, it being intended that the work should be done without removing the shutters from the building, is not liable to a traveller on the adjoining highway, who, while in the exercise of reasonable care, is injured by one of the shutters falling upon him, owing to the negligence of the workmen of the painter, while hoisting a ladder used as a staging, in allowing it unnecessarily to move upward so near the wall of the building as to lift the shutter off its hinges as it lay open against the wall, or in not temporarily closing such of the shutters as were in the way before drawing up the staging.
One, who is walking in a narrow street in a city and, by reason of an obstruction of the sidewalk on one side, crosses to the other side, where there is no barrier or warning to indicate the presence of danger, but where above him there is a ladder staging of but little weight suspended on the side of a building by ropes and pulleys, with men in the street holding the ropes in their hands, is in no way negligent in failing to anticipate and avoid the falling of a shutter lifted off its hinges by the hoisting of the staging.
In an action against a master painter for personal injuries from the falling of one of the shutters of a building by reason of its being lifted off its hinges by the hoisting of a ladder used as a staging on the side of the building by the workmen of the defendant, the plaintiff may show that the defendant's permit from the superintendent of streets did not authorize the use of the street where the accident happened and that the defendant was occupying the street in violation of an ordinance, this being some evidence of negligence, which in connection with other facts may become of importance, but, if at the close of the evidence it is plain that the violation of the ordinance was not the direct and proximate cause of the accident, the defendant is entitled to have the jury instructed to that effect.
Where a violation of a statute or of an ordinance is relied upon as evidence of negligence, the circumstances of the violation may be shown to diminish the effect which it otherwise would have as such evidence.
against the defendant in the second case. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in each of the two cases, and both defendants excepted. held, that under the instructions of the judge the jury might have returned the verdict against the defendant in the second ease merely as a consequence of the verdict in the first case, without considering other and proper grounds on which the defendant in the second case might have been found liable, and therefore that the exceptions of the defendant in the second case must be sustained as well as those of the defendant in the first case.
KNOWLTON, C.J. These are two actions tried together in the Superior Court, brought to recover for an injury received by the plaintiff from the fall of a shutter from a building occupied and kept in repair by the defendant in the first action, the shutters of which were being painted by the defendant in the second action. The plaintiff contended that he was walking through Belcher Lane, a public highway in the city of Boston, in the exercise of due care, and that the defendant Grant and his servants negligently suffered the shutter to fall upon him from the fifth story of the building, while they were drawing up a ladder used as a staging, with ropes and pulleys along the face of the wall, in such a way that the ladder lifted up the shutter from its hinges as it was open against the wall, and left it without support. He also contended that the defendant in the first case made a contract with the defendant in the second case for the painting of the shutters, the performance of which contract necessarily involved such danger to travellers upon the street below that it was legally bound to protect them from the danger. The jury found against both defendants, and the cases are here upon exceptions. We will consider first the case against the occupant of the building.
expected or intended that he should do it. His contract was to paint all the shutters on the building. The evidence tended to show that such shutters were always painted on the building, and that they would be expected to be painted there. The jury might well find that this contract was intended to be performed without a removal of the shutters. But painting the shutters upon the building did not necessarily make the building a nuisance, or put it into a dangerous condition, such as to make it an object of peril to travellers on the street.
the shutters on it, but that buildings with such fire shutters were always so painted, and there was nothing to show that a shutter ever fell from such a cause before or afterwards. There was no evidence that the shutter was out of repair or improperly constructed. The only evidence as to the cause of the accident tended to show that there was a lack of skill, or a lack of care in moving the staging.
sary temporarily to close the shutters at the point where the ladder was being lifted, while the staging passed by, he had a right, upon the evidence, to do it, and there is no reason to suppose that the company would have objected to his doing it.
It seems that the danger which the jury were permitted to find sufficient to create a liability on the part of this defendant was that which is incident to doing difficult work, where an injury may result from the lack of the exercise of skill and care, or even from pure accident. This is a different kind of danger from that which was made a ground of recovery in the cases above cited. See also Ainsworth v. Lakin, 180 Mass. 397; Cabot v. Kingman, 166 Mass. 403 ; Flynn v. Butler, 189 Mass. 377 ; Bower v. Peate, 1 Q. B. D. 321, 326, 327 ; Hughes v. Percival, 8 App. Cas. 443 ; Penny v. Wimbledon Urban Council,  2 Q. B. 212 ; S. C.  2 Q. B. 72 ; Engel v. Eureka Club, 137 N. Y. 100, 104 ; Water Co. v. Ware, 16 Wall. 566, 576 ; Bibb v. Norfolk & Western Railroad, 87 Va. 711. There was no evidence to show inherent danger to travellers on the street in painting shutters on a building.
In the second case an important question was whether there was evidence that the plaintiff was in the exercise of due care. He was walking in a narrow street where there was no barrier or warning to indicate the presence of danger. By reason of obstructions upon the walk, on one side, he crossed to the other side where the walk was clear. All that was above him was a ladder staging of but little weight, sustained by ropes and pulleys, with men then holding the ropes in their hands as they stood in the street. He had no reason to expect the fall of the shutter, and there was no evidence that he knew or appreciated the risk of such an accident as befell him. The cases of. Kilroy v. Foss, 161 Mass. 138, Slade v. Beattie, 186 Mass. 267, and Nye v. Dutton, 187 Mass. 549, relied on by the defendant, are very different in their facts, and not conclusive against a recovery by the present plaintiff. We are of opinion that there was no error in the judge's rulings and refusals to rule on this part of the case.
held some evidence of his negligence, and it was competent to show that the defendant's permit did not authorize the use of the street where the accident happened, and that he was occupying the street in violation of an ordinance. [Note p96] Whether this evidence would be of much importance, in connection with the other facts in the case, was not apparent in the beginning. When the evidence was closed we think it was plain that the violation of the ordinance was not the direct and proximate cause of the accident, and we think that, upon the defendant's request, the jury should have been so instructed. The violation of a statute, although ordinarily evidence of negligence, is not conclusive evidence. It has been held that it may be so remote as not to be material, and not to require a submission of the case to the jury. Glassey v. Worcester Consolidated Street Railway, 185 Mass. 315. Farrell v. Sturtevant Co. 194 Mass. 431, 434. Belleveau v. Lowe Supply Co. 200 Mass. 237. So too, where a violation of a statute or ordinance is relied upon as evidence of negligence, the circumstances may be shown, if they have a tendency to explain the unlawful conduct and to diminish the effect that otherwise would be given to it as evidence of negligence. Hanlon v. South Boston Horse Railroad, 129 Mass. 310.
The judge gave the jury the following instructions: "If you find against the Whiting Company, you must also find against the defendant Grant. If the Whiting Company is liable Grant is also liable. . . . If the Whiting Company is found negligent it follows that Grant is also negligent."
R. Spring, (W. Rand with him,) for the defendant in the first case.
R. B. Stone, for the defendant in the second case.
E. R. Anderson, (F. E. Jennings with him,) for the plaintiff.
[Note p96] Revised Ordinances of Boston of 1898, c. 38, § 8, as amended in 1905, c. 38, § 8.

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