Court Opinion

ID: 5453658
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-08 19:40:53.826807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:32:33.222421
License: Public Domain

BEATTY, C. J.
I dissent. There was, in my opinion, sufficient evidence of negligence on the part of defendants to go to the jury, and not sufficient evidence of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff to justify the court in granting a nonsuit on that ground. It is clear that the machine was dangerous to a man unfamiliar with its construction, and ignorant of the proper method of keeping it in order. If the plaintiff had expressly represented himself as competent to run and manage it, or had impliedly done so by seeking the employment, there might have been no duty resting upon the defendants to instruct or warn him as to the dangers involved in its operation. But the plaintiff’s evidence showed that, so far from seeking the employment, or leading the defendants by any express or implied representations to suppose that he was competent to operate the machine, he accepted the employment unwillingly, protesting that he did not understand machinery, and that some one else should be put in charge. When a man is set to work upon a dangerous machine, under such circumstances, I think the employer is guilty of negligence if he fails to give proper instructions as to the method of operating the machine safely, and he is more specially guilty of negligence if he instructs the employee to operate it in a manner that is dangerous. Now, in this case, the only instruction ever given to the plaintiff, according to his evidence, was to do as he had seen Libben do, and in following this instruction he incurred the injury complained of. In this view of the case, a nonsuit would certainly have been improper, and the verdict of the jury is sustained by the evidence.