Case Name: Joseph E. Cartier vs. Walker Ice Company
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1904-10-18
Citations: 186 Mass. 523
Docket Number: 
Parties: Joseph E. Cartier vs. Walker Ice Company.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 186
Pages: 523–524

Head Matter:
Joseph E. Cartier vs. Walker Ice Company.
Worcester.
October 4, 1904.
October 18, 1904.
Present: Knowlton, C. J., Barker, Hammosd, Loring, & Bralky, JJ.
Negligence, Contributory.
An employee of an ice company, managing the switch of an ice run so carelessly that it is struck and broken by a block o£ ice and injures him by coming against . his ankle, cannot recover from his employer for the injuries.
Tort for personal injuries from being struck by a switch, alleged to have been fastened insufficiently, while employed in switching ice on a run connected with an ice house of the defendant at North Pond in Worcester. Writ dated February 7,1903.
At the trial in the Superior Court before GrasTcill, J., it appeared, that the plaintiff was employed by the defendant on the day of the accident, and, after working a short time upon the ice in the pond, was directed to tend a certain switch which, according to the way it was turned, either sent the ice directly into the ice house or allowed it to go down the run; that the plaintiff had worked at this particular switch in four or five previous years while the defendant was harvesting ice; that the cakes of ice weighed about two hundred pounds each; that the plaintiff, having been at the switch about half an hour and having sent about six cakes directly into the house, intended to allow the next one to go past him and down the run, and with that in tention pulled the switch toward him, and had drawn it as far as the middle of the run, when it was struck by a cake of ice with such force that the nut which held the switch came off the bolt and the switch itself came off, striking the plaintiff on the ankle and causing the injuries.
At the close of the plaintiff’s evidence the judge ordered a verdict for the defendant; and the plaintiff alleged exceptions.
W. I. McLaughlin, J. A.. Thayer ^ C. B. Perry, for the plaintiff.
W. Thayer, S. W. Cobb 8? P. A. Walker, for the defendant.

Opinion:
Hammond, J.
The direction to the jury to return a verdict for the defendant was right. Without reciting the evidence in detail, it is plain that the carelessness of the plaintiff in the management of the switch was the cause of the accident, and the jury would not have been warranted in finding otherwise.
Exceptions overruled.