Court Opinion

ID: 9654057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:04:39.094928+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:05.532009
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Griffin,
joined by Justice Smith, dissenting.
I do not agree that this case is one where the plaintiff (workman) assumed the risk of being injured by getting on the ladder to complete the work required by the general contract. The evidence establishes that it was necessary to use the ladder to complete this particular job. The general contractor — the petitioner herein — was under the duty to furnish to Patterson a safe place to work and that duty was a continuing duty until the contract was completed. Petitioner voluntarily chose to complete the floor and finish it so that it was slick, prior to the completion by Patterson’s employer of his sub-contract, thereby violating the usual custom of the building trade on similar jobs. To have followed the usual custom would not have exposed Patterson to the risk of having to work on the slick floor. Patterson had no control over the finishing of the floor at a time prior to the completion of his work. Patterson had no other alternative than to complete his work on the slick floor so furnished by petitioner.
Under these facts, I do not believe Patterson should be held, as a matter of law, to have assumed the risk of being hurt. I believe a fact issue was raised, and that the judgments of both courts below should be affirmed on the authority of Gulf, C. & S. Ry. Co. v. Gascamp, 69 Texas 545, 7 S.W. 227; and Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Wood, Texas Civ. App., 166 S.W. 2d 141. I do not believe that under the rules laid down by us in the recent case of Wood v. Kane Boiler Works, Inc., 150 Texas 191, 238 S.W. 2d 172, 176. Patterson “voluntarily and by the exercise of an ‘intelligent choice’ agreed” to assume the risk of injury when he climbed the ladder in order to complete his job.
June 30, 1954.
Rehearing overruled October 20, 1954.