Court Opinion

ID: 9663929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:55:15.919005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:59.304470
License: Public Domain

Roberds, J.
(dissenting).
In my opinion, the peremptory instruction requested by defendant should have been given. I can see no *317liability on the part of appellant under the facts of this case. Liability is grounded solely on the failure of defendant to use reasonable diligence to furnish plaintiff, as its servant, a reasonably safe place in which to work. This, indeed, is the measure and limit of the duty of the master. Eagle Cotton Oil Company v. Pickett, 175 Miss. 577, 166 So. 764; Meridian Grain and Elevator Company v. Jones, 176 Miss. 764, 169 So. 771; Gulfport Fertilizer Company v. Bilbo, 178 Miss. 791, 174 So. 65; Aponaug Mfg. Company v. Hammond, 185 Miss. 198, 187 So. 227; Stewart v. Kroger Grocery, etc., Company, 198 Miss. 371, 21 So. (2d) 912, and many other cases which might be cited.
The burden was upon plaintiff to show failure to use such diligence. I don’t think he did that. The facts are undisputed bearing upon that question. Appellant operated a gas station. Its pumps were twenty-one feet and seven inches from the south side of the highway. Plaintiff was required to work about the pumps, servicing-automobiles with gas therefrom. He may have had the additional duty of performing some service about the salesroom, which was several feet farther from the public highway than the gas pumps. He had no duty to perform any service at or near the loose gravel which crept upon the paved highway as automobiles departed from the gas statioji. His nearest duty to the highway was to service cars at the gas pumps. Nothing- else whatever was wrong with the place in which appellee had to work other than the small amount of gravel which crept upon the highway as automobiles passed from the station area upon the paved highway. It is common knowledge that along and beside the highways of Mississippi there are located hundreds of gas stations, the front areas of which are covered with gravel to the edge of the adjoining public highways. Necessarily, more or less gravel and dirt from such areas accumulate for two or three-feet upon the highway as automobiles make their exits from the service stations. If, by virtue of that necessary *318result, such stations are rendered unsafe places to work, then indeed the conduct of that business is a hazardous undertaking.
Again, I cannot conceive how the operator of such a station can be charged with notice that an employee, having the duties of this plaintiff, the performance of which did not require him to go nearer the highway than some fifteen feet, could anticipate that an injury might occur to him as a result of the accumulation of gravel upon the highway in the manner and quantity as here shown. It should be kept in mind that this case in nowise involved the duty of appellant to one traveling upon the public highway. The sole question is whether the master used reasonable care to furnish the servant a reasonably safe place in which to work.
McG-ehee, O. J., and Smith, J., concur in this dissent.