Opinion ID: 1193977
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: More Men More Safety Devices

Text: We cannot say that the defendant-employer was negligent as a matter of law for not employing more men and having safety devices on the job. This we would have to do if we were to overrule the factfinding trial court on this issue. We recognize that the care required is commensurate with the danger involved. But the trial court held the defendant to have discharged his duty of care under the facts. We have to ask  what would more tools or men have done to protect the plaintiff? Would additional men not have been doing the same thing the plaintiff and the Carters were doing  taking a break while the cabinet stood motionless  until it fell for an unexplained reason? Nobody anticipated this unfortunate happening  including the plaintiff  and there is no reason to believe that the employer should have anticipated the necessity of more tools and more men in order that this operation would be conducted safely. There were enough tools and men. The problem was that nobody anticipated the happening  nor were they bound to have anticipated it. Indeed, in the discharge of the safe-place-to-work duty, the employer must furnish not only a safe place but is also bound to furnish safe tools and sufficient employees. However, the risks to be guarded against are only those known by the employer or those with which he is chargeable with knowing, and they may not be those risks and dangers which arise in the progress of the work. Engen, supra. We affirm the lower court's holding on appellant's Point I, charging a failure to furnish a safe place to work. For a determination of this appeal, there is no need for us to make detailed inquiry into the facts and law of appellant's second assignment of error, which is: The trial court's holding that plaintiff was contributorily negligent and/or assumed the risk is not supported by the evidence and is contrary to law. Since we hold that the defendant was not negligent, then it matters not whether the plaintiff was contributorily negligent or whether he assumed the risk inherent in the moving operations. We say only, with respect to the contributory negligence-assumption of the risk contention, that we have considered it and, according to the facts and the applicable law, would also affirm the trial court's rejection of this contention for the reason that the appellant is specifically excluded from recovery under the doctrine of Berry v. Iowa Mid-West Land and Livestock Co., Wyo., 424 P.2d 409, 411, where we held: ... Under the circumstances of this particular case, however, we can say it is apparent that if defendant's omission is assumed to constitute negligence, then the acts of plaintiff would necessarily and as a matter of law amount to contributory negligence. Where a danger is as open and obvious to the servant as to the master, or where the servant has better means of knowledge than the master, he will be charged with such negligence as to bar recovery. 56 C.J.S. Master and Servant § 435, p. 1259; Ring v. Kruse, 158 Neb. 1, 62 N.W. 2d 279, 285; Freeman v. Smit, 193 Wash. 346, 75 P.2d 575, 577-578. See also Nolen v. Halpin-Dwyer Const. Co., 225 Mo. App. 224, 29 S.W.2d 215, 219, where the court gives as a reason for this rule that if either is guilty of any failure the other is guilty of the same. In Restatement Second, Agency 2d § 521, p. 489 (1958), it is given as a rule that a master is not liable to a servant for harm caused by unsafe conditions of employment, if the servant, with knowledge of the facts and understanding of the risks, voluntarily enters or continues in the employment. Also, in Chicago & N.W. Ry. Co. v. Ott, 33 Wyo. 200, 237 P. 238, 241, rehearing denied 238 P. 287, certiorari denied 269 U.S. 585, 46 S.Ct. 201, 70 L.Ed. 425, this court adopted the following rule with respect to risks assumed by an employee: `A servant assumes (1) the risk of such dangers as are ordinarily and normally incident to his occupation, and a workman of mature years is presumed to know them, whether he does or not; (2) such extraordinary or abnormal risks  usually, at least, arising out of the negligence of the master  the conditions and dangers of which he (a) knows and appreciates and faces without complaint, or the conditions and dangers of which (b) are so obvious and apparent that an ordinarily careful person would, under the circumstances, observe and appreciate them.   .' Affirmed.