Court Opinion

ID: 9807650
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:12:04.23759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:50:25.327288
License: Public Domain

WalKee., J.,
dissenting: I wish that I could fully concur with my associates in the decision of this case, because I regard the neglect of the defendant to repair the hand car, if the evidence is to be believed, as not only gross, but cruel. It is one of the first duties of the master to care for the safety of his employees, and, in the discharge of that duty, to use' reasonable care in furnishing him with such tools and imple*251ments to perforin bis work as will not unnecessarily expose bim to danger. Marks v. Cotton Mills, 135 N. C., 287; Witsell v. Railroad, 120 N. C., 557; Hicks v. Manufacturing Co., 138 N. C., 319. That duty was not performed in tbis case, as tbe jury evidently found; and if tbis were all, I would not hesitate to give my assent to tbe conclusion of tbe Court. But it is not, by any manner of means. It appears here that tbe servant knowingly and deliberately violated tbe defendant’s orders to remove tbe band car from the track at least twenty minutes before tbe passage of a train — freight or passenger. Tbe plaintiff actually saw a train approaching, and knew that it was on its schedule time. If be had complied with'the rule and the instruction of his employer, tbe accident would not bave occurred; and the master’s default, while gross and inexcusable, was not tbe proximate cause' of his injury, as it must be to entitle him to a verdict, but bis own neglect in disobeying orders. Besides, it is perfectly apparent, from tbe nature of tbe accident and tbe manner in which it occurred, that it was not the result of tbe particular defect in tbe band car complained of, but was produced by the effort of the plaintiff to reach a point beyond that where be should bave removed the hand car from the track. If he had complied with explicit orders be would not bave been hurt. Tbis Court has held repeatedly that, where an injury is caused by a departure from the employer’s instructions to his servant, the latter is not entitled to recover, because he is considered as the author of bis own injury, volunti non fit injuria, and it is not within the terms of tbe contract of employment that tbe master should protect him from such an injury. Whitson v. Wrenn, 134 N. C., 86; Stewart v. Carpet Co., 138 N. C., 60, and, as being more directly in point, Hicks v. Manufacturing Co., 138 N. C., 319, where the principle is clearly and definitely stated by- Justice Hoke- for tbis Court. We have also laid down the same doctrine at this term in Patterson v. Lumber Co. While tbe plaintiff has my sympathy in bis *252misfortune, decisions of tbis Court cannot be based upon sympathy, but must be founded upon the law, as we said in Crenshaw v. Street Railway, 144 N. C., 314.
There was just as much causal connection between the plaintiff’s negligent act and the injury in this case as there was in any of those cases we have cited, wherein the servant was denied the right of recovery, and there are many more decisions which might be cited to the same effect.