Court Opinion

ID: 9868187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:17:01.391231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:46.845287
License: Public Domain

Affirmed September 22, 1914.
On the Merits.
(143 Pac. 992.)
Department 2. Statement by Mr. Justice Eakin.
This is an action by the minor son of the deceased for the death of John C. Fisher. It is alleged that the defendants owned and were operating a sawmill in Clackamas County, and that Pittman Bros, were employed to deliver and were delivering logs at said sawmill ; that John C. Fisher was employed by them to aid in the delivery of said logs; that said Pittman Bros, used a donkey-engine in connection with the said work, and that said John C. Fisher was employed about the said donkey-engine. After alleging that said engine was old and worn and of insufficient strength to withstand the steam pressure, it alleges that the boiler thereof exploded, by which explosion the said John C. Fisher was killed; that the plaintiff is an only child and heir, and sues for $10,000 damages.
The answer is a general denial. After trial the jury rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for the sum of $5,000 against the defendants, and the defendant Portland Bailway, Light & Power Company appeals. Affirmed,
*234For appellants there was a brief over the names of Messrs. Griffith, Leiter & Allen and Mr. F. J. Lonergan, with an oral argument by Mr. Rufus A. Leiter.
For respondent there was a brief over the names of Mr. Maurice W. Seitz, Mr. Ernest R. Ringo and Messrs Graham, Davis & Young, with oral arguments by Mr. Seitz and Mr. Ringo.
Mr. Justice Eakin
delivered the opinion of the court.
4. There are a great many assignments of error, nearly all of which grow out of the question as to whether Pittman Bros, were independent contractors for the delivery of the logs, and as to whether, notwithstanding that fact, defendants were liable for the death of John C. Fisher, who was an employee of the Pittmans. The general rule is that the employer is not liable to an employee of the contractor for personal injuries received in the employment. There is an extended note to the case of Salliotte v. King Bridge Co., 58 C. C. A. 466 (122 Fed. 378, 65 L. R. A. 620), on this subject, tracing down for more than a century the history of the development of the rule that the employer is not liable. There is also a discussion of the subject in 1 Thompson, Negligence, Section 622, and a full note in Covington etc. Bridge Co. v. Steinbrock, 76 Am. St. Rep. 375, at page 382. The latter states, as a conclusion of the discussion and review of the cases, the rule of liability of the employer thus:
“While the contractor alone, and not his employer, is generally liable in cases where work is carried on under an independent employment, this rule of liability is limited to those injuries which are collateral to the work to be performed, and which arise from the *235negligence or wrongful act of the contractor or his agents or servants. Acts ‘collateral’ to the work contracted for are to be distinguished from those which the contractor expressly agrees and is authorized to do, and from which injury directly results.”
Where the work to be performed is dangerous, or the obligation rests upon the employer to keep the subject of the work in safe condition, the rule has no application: Circleville v. Neuding, 41 Ohio St. 465, 469; Hexamer v. Webb, 101 N. Y. 377 (4 N. E. 755, 54 Am. St. Rep. 703); Hundhausen v. Bond, 36 Wis. 29; Mayor v. McCrary, 84 Ala. 469 (4 South. 630); Benjamin v. Metropolitan St. Ry. Co., 133 Mo. 274 (34 S. W. 590).
5. Where the obstruction or defect which occasions the injury results from the acts which the contractor agreed and is authorized to do, the person who employs the contractor and authorizes him to do the act is equally liable to the injured party: Davie v. Levy, 39 La. Ann. 551 (2 South. 395, 4 Am. St. Rep. 225).
“Where the obstruction or defect caused or created in the street is purely collateral to the work contracted to be done, and is entirely the result of the wrongful acts of the contractor or his workmen, the rule is that the employer is not liable; but where the obstruction or defect which occasioned the injury results directly from the acts which the contractor agrees and is authorized to do, the person who employs the contractor and authorizes him to do those acts is equally liable to the injured party”: Robbins v. Chicago City, 4 Wall. 679 (18 L. Ed. 427).
6. In the case before us, if there was any negligence it was in using a defective engine. The injury was a result of the doing of the acts the principal authorized to be done, and not in the doing of any collateral thing. Defendants furnished the contractors the engine that exploded. The only suggestion of negligence was in *236using the defective engine, which was chargeable to defendants, and to defendants only. The work the contractors were employed to perform was the delivery of the logs at the mill by means of that engine, and the injury did not grow out of any collateral matter, but from the very act defendant employed the contractor to perform, and for which, by all the authorities, defendants were responsible, even if done by an independent contractor. This ruling does not conflict with the decision in Lawton v. Morgan Fleidner & Boyce, 66 Or. 292 (131 Pac. 314, 134 Pac. 1037). The opinion in that case begins by stating that by the common law the defendant was not liable, and proceeds to discuss whether or not it was made liable by the 1910 Employers’ Liability Act. The subsequent reasoning of that case shows only that our Employers’ Liability Statute of 1910 does not apply to such an employer, who is not liable under the common law. It does not discuss the liability of the employer. The statute does not change the common-law rule of the liability of the independent contractor. In the case of Giaconi v. Astoria, 60 Or. 12, at page 36 (118 Pac. 180), at page 184), Mr. Justice Burnett treats this subject at length, in which he says, among other things:
“The general rule is that an employer is not liable for the acts of an independent contractor, for the reason that the latter is not subject to the control of the employer. To this rule, however, there are certain well-recognized exceptions. Among these exceptions are cases in which the injuries are the necessary consequence of executing the work in the manner provided for in the contract. * * In the apt words of Lord Chief Justice Campbell, in Elliott v. Sheffield Gas Co., 2 E. & B. 767, ‘ the contractor does the thing which he is employed to do, the employer is responsible for that thing, as if he did it himself.’ ”
*237If defendants had been operating the engine themselves and injury had resulted, they, no doubt, would have been liable, and they were none the less liable when they placed the same in the hands of another for operation.
Although we do not approve of all the statements of the trial judge on the admission of some of the evidence, some of them might have had a tendency to influence the jury. As in the view we have taken of the main question the other matters are not prejudicial, we will not consider them.
The judgment is affirmed. Affirmed.
Mr. Chief Justice McBride, Mr. Justice Bean and Mr. Justice McNary concur.