Court Opinion

ID: 6974907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 02:09:15.929014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:08:56.704722
License: Public Domain

Cooks, Cartwright and Dunn, JJ., dissenting: We do not agree with the majority that every failure on the part of a mine examiner to discover a dangerous condition in a mine is a willful violation of the statute, nor do we think that the cases- cited in the majority opinion support that doctrine. A willful violation of this statute must necessarily be a conscious or knowing violation. To hold that a mine examiner is bound to discover a dangerous condition in the mine, even though by the honest application of every known means it is impossible to- detect it at the time of the examination, and that a failure to discover such condition under such circumstances' is willful, is to read into the statute that which is not there, and is to require of a mine operator that which is impossible for him to perform. This statute is not meant to malee the operator an insurer against every accident in his mine which results from dangerous conditions, but only - requires him to cause an examination to be made by an authorized examiner, to make the required records of the examination, and to mark such places as are found, upon proper examination and the honest use of approved methods, to be dangerous. It is only a failure to make such an examination that constitutes a willful violation of the statute in respect to guarding against dangerous conditions in mines.