Case Name: CITRONE v. O'ROURKE ENGINEERING CONST. CO.
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1906-06-08
Citations: 99 N.Y.S. 241
Docket Number: 
Parties: CITRONE v. O’ROURKE ENGINEERING CONST. CO.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 99
Pages: 241–248

Head Matter:
CITRONE v. O’ROURKE ENGINEERING CONST. CO.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
June 8, 1906.)
Master and Servant—Injuries to Servant—Assumption of Risk—Promise to Remedy Defect.
Where, on complaint of a servant as to the safety of the place where he was at work, the master told him to go to work, and that after a certain time it would be repaired, the master assumed the risk of injury from the time of the promise until the time specified; contentions that he assumed the risk only after the time specified, and assumed it after the expiration of a reasonable time from the promise, being untenable.
[Ed. Note.—For eases in point, see vol. 34, Cent. Dig. Master and Servant, §§ 638-640.] •
Jenks and Rich, JJ., dissenting.
Appeal from Trial Term, Richmond County.
Action by Donate Citrone against the O’Rourke Engineering Construction Company. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, and from an order denying a motion for a new trial, defendant appeals.
Affirmed.
Argued before JENKS, HOOKER, RICH, MILLER, and GAY-NOR, JJ.
Theodore H. Lord, for appellant.
Thomas J. O’Neill, for respondent.

Opinion:
GAYNOR, J.
The plaintiff was set to work in a trench. He reported that the place was unsafe from stones above in the side of the trench that might fall on him. The trench was sheathed and braced up on each side, but not all the way to the top, and the stones were above the sheathing. The foreman in charge of the work and who employed the plaintiff told him "to go to work and after dinner he would fix it." This happened at about -8:30 o'clock in the forenoon. The plaintiff went to work, induced by the promise, and the stones fell on him at 10:30 o'clock.
The master is of course always free to make an agreement with the servant relieving him permanently or for only a limited time of the risk of being hurt in his work, and thereby assuming it himself, whether such risk be inherent or from a defective condition of working place or appliance. It is upon this freedom of contract that the assumption of risk by the master always rests. Dowd v. N. Y., O. & W. R. Co., 170 N. Y. 459, 63 N. E. 541. The question in a given case therefore is simply whether such an agreement express or implied was made. It is now settled in this state by the recent case of Rice v. Eureka Paper Co., 174 N. Y. 385, 66 N. E. 979, 62 L. R. A. 611, 95 Am. St. Rep. 585, that a mere promise by the master to the servant to repair á dangerous defect reported to him by the latter, made to induce and which does induce the servant to continue at work, amounts in law to an agreement relieving the servant from the risk and of assumption thereof by the master for the period during which the agreement continues. In the present case there is more in express words, viz., a promise to repair coupled with a request to continue work, and that there was enough to constitute such an agreement as matter of law is-therefore not open to dispute. The rule laid down in Laning v. H. Y. C. R. Co., 49 N. Y. 521, 10 Am. Rep. 417, and so long-followed by the trial judges, has been superseded by the Rice Case. The master's inducing promise to repair, from being only a fact to be considered by the jury on the question of fact whether the servant assumed the risk of the defect (or was guilty of contributory negligence, as it is otherwise expressed), by continuing at work, as was decided in the Laning Case and in such other leading cases as Counsell v. Hall, 145 Mass. 470, 14 N. E. 530, has evolved in this state into a contract relieving the servant of the risk and of assumption thereof by the master as matter of law.
The contention is, however, that although an agreement of assumption of risk was made by the master, it did not begin to run until after dinner—that it did not cover the period between the making of it and dinner time. I do not see how this can prevail. The very contrary seems to me inherent in the words and purpose of the agreement, viz., the agreement was intended to cover the period during which the servant was to be induced to work by it, viz., from the time of making it un til dinner time. The purpose of the master was to induce the servant to resume work until dinner time, and he effected it by promising to repair the defect after dinner. The servant was not to be subjected to the risk after dinner, for it was then to be removed, and therefore the agreement could not be intended to cover that time, but, on the contrary, the time that the servant was to undergo the risk.
In the Rice Case the promise was made at the close on Saturday to do the repairs "the forepart of next week," which the Court of Appeals construed to mean during the fore-half of next week, i. e., not later than Wednesday; and it was held as matter of law that the agreement went'into effect at once and that the defendant assumed the risk for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and was liable for the plaintiff's hurt on Wednesday. If the promise be to do the repairs presently, or within no fixed time, the agreement subsists for a reasonable time only, but if the parties fix the period of its duration, it of course applies during that period.
If the master had said, "Go to work and I will fix it," the agreement would concededly have begun to run immediately, and would have meant that within a reasonable time the danger would be removed, but because the master said, "Go to work and after dinner I will fix it," it is claimed that the agreement did not begin to run at all; the agreement was not to begin to run until dinner .time, and then only if the defendant failed to keep its promise. In the Rice Case the master said, in substance, "Go to work and I will fix it some time in the fore-half of next week" (i. e. not later than on Wednesday), and the agreement was held to begin to run immediately and continue until Thursday. It was not-that the danger would be removed immediately, but at some time within three days. Why then did it begin to run immediately if the present one did not? Why in the period intermediate the making of the agreement and the time limited for the making of the repairs (Wednesday) did the agreement apply there if not here? Can a single reason be assigned? The law is not complex but simple and consistent, and it is always a misfortune to make it appear otherwise. We need in this instance to make a simple working rule for trial judges and jurors.
The learned trial judge charged the jury that unless the defendant made the promise to repair they should render a verdict for the defendant ; but that "if the promise was made the defendant assumed the risk and the plaintiff was relieved of it "úntil the expiration of a reasonable time after the promise had been made"; and he left it to the Jury to say whether such reasonable time had elapsed before the accident happened, in which case he instructed them the plaintiff had assumed the risk and the defendant was relieved of it, and the verdict should be for the defendant. This was an error prejudicial to the plaintiff, and not to the defendant, although the defendant excepted to it, for there was no question in the case of a reasonable time for the performance of the promise. On the contrary, the parties fixed the time by agreement. The jury should therefore have been charged as matter of law that the defendant was liable if the promise was made. When such a promise is made to do the repairs presently, or without fixing a time, the cases hold that it continues only for a reasonable time, after which (it not being kept) the risk goes back to the servant if he continues at work. The learned trial judge evidently had this rule in mind in charging the jury, and did not perceive for the moment that it had nothing to do with cases where the time is fixed by the agreement.
The judgment should be affirmed.
Judgment and order affirmed, with costs.
HOOKER and MILLER, JJ., concur.