Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/228/688/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 14:22:44+00:00

Document:
Whether one is in general service of another or not if he is rendering the latter a service even as a volunteer and comes under his orders, he becomes his servant, and fellow-servant of the other employees.
The servant is not only such while actually at work on the service for which he is specially employed, but also during its progress while absent from the location for the purpose of, and in connection with, such work.
One going in the master's conveyance on the master's business held, in this case, to be a fellow-servant of the driver of the conveyance.
In view of the adoption by Porto Rico, in substantially the same form, of the English Employers' Liability Act which presupposes the existence of the common law rule as to fellow servants, and the provisions of that act in regard to exceptions in specific instances, and in the absence of any authorities to the contrary, held that the law in Porto Rico in regard to the fellow servant defense does not differ from the common law.
A single expression in the testimony that the driver of an automobile was accustomed to drink while driving the machine, there being other testimony importing usual sobriety, does not justify a finding of negligence on the part of the employer for employing a servant who was incompetent as an excessive drinker.
The facts, which involve the application in a case for personal injuries in Porto Rico of the defense of negligence of a fellow-servant, and the determination of whether the employee of the defendant whose negligence caused the injury was a fellow servant of the plaintiff, are stated in the opinion.
This is an action for personal injuries suffered in Porto Rico. The declaration alleges that the plaintiff at the defendant's request, made a trip on an automobile of the latter "for the purpose of aiding other employees of the defendant in moving a certain boiler which was the property of the defendant," and that, in returning from the trip, the automobile was so negligently operated by the defendant, its agents and employees, that it was driven into a ditch and the plaintiff was badly hurt. There was a trial by jury in which, at the end of the plaintiff's evidence, the judge directed a verdict for the defendant and the plaintiff excepted. The evidence showed that the machine was driven by a servant of the defendant, so that it appeared in proof that the plaintiff was suing for an injury caused by a fellow servant, as is to be inferred from the face of the declaration itself.
the plaintiff was not a fellow servant, and therefore, although the contention hardly is open, the substance of the testimony may be stated. The plaintiff's general employers had sold a sugar mill to the Central, delivered in New Orleans. At the request of the Central, they had sent over the plaintiff to put up a chimney, a battery of six boilers, and a bagasse track. While at the work, he seems to have been paid by the defendant, and was under the direction of its chief engineer. The chimney had been nearly finished and the next work was to set up the boilers, but they had not arrived. The man in charge of the transportation directed the plaintiff to go and help to get a boiler, which, after asking the chief engineer for leave, he did. When they got to the boiler, there were not enough machines to haul it, so that they had to return to the Central. On the way, the driver seems to have been more or less drunk, and negligently, it must be assumed, upset the machine.
Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Dixon, 194 U. S. 338; Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Bourman, 212 U. S. 536, 212 U. S. 541; Beutler v. Grand Trunk Junction Ry. Co., 224 U. S. 85. If the law of Porto Rico does not differ in this respect from the common law, the direction to the jury was right.
Whether the common law rule prevails is not made clear by any authority cited. But, by the Act of March 1, 1902 (Rev.Stat. & Codes, 1902, p. 150), the English Employers' Liability Act was copied more or less exactly, as it has been in some of the states. That statute presupposes the common law rule as to fellow servants, Ryalls v. Mechanics' Mills, 150 Mass.190, 191, and the Porto Rican copy would be hard to account for except upon the same presupposition. If a master were liable for injuries caused by the negligence of a fellow servant, there would be no need of enacting that he should be liable for such injuries in specific cases, as the statute does, and no sense in the provision of § 10 that the act shall not apply to injuries caused to domestic servants, or farm laborers, by fellow employees. Therefore, while we might hesitate if we were deducing the rule from the considerations on which it originally was placed, Schlemmer v. Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg Ry. Co., 205 U. S. 1, 205 U. S. 11-12, as indeed one might hesitate about the more general liability to which it is an exception, we must assume that it exists, even laying on one side the suggestion that the statute offers the only remedy for cases within it. We should add that this suit is not brought under the act.
him for his work. The only other reference to the matter was by another of the plaintiff's witnesses, that the driver was "not in the mood or attitude which he usually had when we worked together in the shops," importing usual sobriety. It would have been permitting a mere guess to allow the jury to find for the plaintiff on this ground.

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