Case Name: HOLLOWAY v. McWILLIAMS
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1904-10-14
Citations: 89 N.Y.S. 1074
Docket Number: 
Parties: HOLLOWAY v. McWILLIAMS.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 89
Pages: 1074–1087

Head Matter:
HOLLOWAY v. McWILLIAMS.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
October 14, 1904.)
1. Master and Servant—Defective Scaffolds—Liability of Master.
The rule that a master who commits the details of the construction of a scaffold to his servants is not liable for their negligence in constructing the same, whereby a fellow servant is injured, has been changed by the labor law (Laws 1897, p. 461, c. 415), and under that law the master is liable for such injuries.
Woodward, J., dissenting.
j[ 1. See Master and Servant, vol. 34, Cent. Dig. §§ 374, 397, 459.
Appeal from Trial Term, Richmond County.
Action by Charles H. Holloway, as administrator of August M. Holloway, deceased, against Frank McWilliams. From a judgment for defendant, and from an order denying a motion for a new trial, plaintiff appeals.
Reversed.
Argued before PIIRSCHBERG, P. J., and BARTLETT, WOODWARD, JENKS, and HOOKER, JJ.
Warren C. Van Slyke, for appellant.
William M. Mullen, for respondent.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
This is a riegligence suit, arising out of the death -of the plaintiff's intestate while working for the defendant upon a scaffold in front of the bow of a scow in the defendant's shipyard. The complaint expressly charged the defendant with having negligently violated chapter 415, p. 461, of the Laws of 1897, commonly known as the "Labor Law." At the conclusion of the trial the case was left to the jury in a charge to which neither party took an exception, and the only questions presented by this appeal relate to the subsequent action of the trial judge in charging 16 requests presented by the defendant. Many Of the instructions thus given to the jury involved the legal proposition that the duty of a master to his servants in such a case as this was fully performed by furnishing proper materials for the construction of the scaffold which broke, so that, where a master committed the details tif the construction of the scaffold to his servants, and their negligence in carrying out those details resulted in injury to a fellow servant, the master was not chargeable. This was the rule sanctioned in Butler v. Townsend, 126 N. Y. 105, 26 N. E. 1017, and other authoritative decisions rendered before the enactment of the Labor Law. That statute, however, has changed the rule. This change has been distinctly recognized by the Appellate Division in the First Department and by the Court of Appeals in the case of Stewart v. Ferguson, 34 App. Div. 515, 54 N. Y. Supp. 615, on subsequent appeal, 52 App. Div. 317, 65 N. Y. Supp. 149, affirmed 164 N. Y. 553, 58 N. E. 662. The instructions given in response to the requests of the defendant were therefore highly misleading, and almost equivalent in effect to a direction to the jury to find against the plaintiff.
For this error we think the judgment should be reversed.