Court Opinion

ID: 9567028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:47:10.585437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:50:54.260114
License: Public Domain

HALLEY, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
There was no causal connection established between the defendant’s alleged negligence and plaintiff’s deceased injury as it was not sho'wn what caused deceased to slip and fall. What caused the deceased to fall is pure conj ecture.
It was error to admit evidence of repairs after the accident and constituted reversible error when considered with all’ the other errors in this case. : 1
The City of Altus of necessity works through its employees. Here is the case of a man who had been employed for eleven years doing a particular job. There is nothing in the record to show that he at any time complained to the City Fathers that the ladder was defective. If it became greasy it was his duty to clean it off. It is a well settled rule in the law of Master and Servant that the master is not required to give either warning or instfuction as to apparent dangers from .fálling where "the servant is working iri'á perilous position, or where the' fall was' caused Ky’ a condition actually known to the servant or plainly obvious to him. If there was any- defect *236in, this ladder it was an obvious defect and the deceased knew more about the alleged defects than anyone else in the world. 56 C.J.S., Master and Servant, §§ 295 and 296, Notes 35 and 36.
If the danger here was as obviously dangerous as the plaintiff claimed, there was no need to warn the employee of its existence or as to its effect. Breece-White Mfg. Co. v. Baker, 8 Cir., 106 F.2d 815.
In Phillips v. Tackett, 168 Okl. 143, 32 P, ,2d 29, 31, this Court said in an opinion by Justice Welch that there was no legal obligation on the part of the employer to warn the employee where the danger to the employee was patent and obvious and quoted from 18 R.C.L. 569 as follows:
“ ‘There is no duty of warning and instruction if the employee’s duties are simple and the danger obvious or if by any other means he possesses knowledge of the risk to which he is subjected.’ ”
This rule was followed in Janow v. Lewis, 197 Okl. 415, 172 P.2d 315, where we said a master is not bound to warn his servant against dangers which are patent and obvious.
I do not think that a municipality should be liable in a case of this kind where the servant was in a position to know of the defective ladder if defective and did know more about its condition than anyone else ánd never complained that it was dangerous or defective.
In my opinion the trial court abused its discretion in not granting the defendant a continuance because of the unavailability of one of the doctors who treated the deceased since medical testimony was of vital importance in this case. The deceased’s death came such a great length of time after the injury to deceased’s arm and it was difficult to determine whether death was caused from the injury or something else.
While I think that a demurrer to the plaintiff's evidence should have been sustained, the worst that should happen to the defendant’ is to have a new trial granted. To .affirm the trial court would, be overlooking too many errors.
I am forced to dissent.