Case Name: ALEXANDER DYE WORKS, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. WILLIAM ROUFOSSE, DEFENDANT IN ERROR
Court: New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1895-03
Citations: 57 N.J.L. 700
Docket Number: 
Parties: ALEXANDER DYE WORKS, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. WILLIAM ROUFOSSE, DEFENDANT IN ERROR.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 57
Pages: 700–701

Head Matter:
ALEXANDER DYE WORKS, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. WILLIAM ROUFOSSE, DEFENDANT IN ERROR.
The fact that the evidence was susceptible of a finding that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence — Held, not ground for reversing a finding of the jury to the opposite effect.
On error to the Supreme Court.
William Roufosse was employed by the Alexander Dye Works to hang silk in the drying-room. The silk was festooned over rails near the ceiling, about sixteen feet from the floor. For this work the company furnished a ladder ten feet high, the platform of which was guarded, upon three of its sides, by a low wooden railing. From this platform Roufosse fell and injured himself. His testimony and his contention are that the railing- gave way under ordinary pressure, owing to conditions which, inspection and repair would have remedied. The defendants insisted that, both in law and in fact, the risk and the negligence were the plaintiff's. .
For the plaintiff in error, James Parker.
For the defendant in error, William D. Tyndall.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Garrison, J.
"We have examined the assignments of error in connection with the record and the bills of exception, and find no legal impropriety'in the trial below, either in what the court did or in what it "refused to do. The case called for the application of the ordinary rules concerning the relation of master and servant. The facts to which the rules were applied were unusual and fairly susceptible of a construction that would lay the blame at the plaintiff's own door. The failure of the jury to take this view of the facts is the real ground of complaint. There being no legal error, the judgment is affirmed.
For affirmance — The Chancellor, Chief Justice, Garrison, Gummere, Lippincott, Magie, Reed, Van Syckel, Bogert, Brown. 10.
For reversal — Hone.