Unnecessarily going to a place of danger 9. Returning to employer's premises to secure tools. The plaintiff had been employed by the defendant as a laborer. He had gone home several days before the date of the accident on account of illness. When he returned he saw the foreman of the defendant. According to the foreman's testimony he told the plaintiff that there was no work for him. The plaintiff declared that the foreman told him he would find something for him to do assisting the electrician. The plaintiff then asked for a shovel belonging to himself which had been left on the work when he had gone home ill a few days before. Someone started to the basement to look for it and the plaintiff himself started also to hunt for the shovel. While doing this the plaintiff fell in an unprotected hole in the floor and was seriously injured. The plaintiff recovered a verdict which was affirmed by the New York Court of Appeals. (E. L.) Lynch v. Pierce, 1 Bradbury's Pl. & Pr. Rep., 594. A workman a few days after leaving his work obtained leave to go down into the mine to bring up his tools, and while there for that purpose met with an accident. The County Court judge found that the accident arose out of and in the course of the man's employment with the colliery owners, and awarded him compensation. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment, on the ground that the appellate court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the findings of fact of the County Court. Molloy v. South Wales Anthracite Colliery Co. (1910), 4 B. W. C. C. 65. A coal mining company was held liable for injuries to an employé, received while going to a place other than that in which he was at work to get tools at the direction of a vice principal. (E. L.) Broadway Coal Mining Co. v. Robinson, 150 S. W. Rep. 1000; 150 Ky. 707. 10. Unnecessarily going to a place of danger.1 Where an employé voluntarily puts himself in a place of 1 See paragraph 16, post, 475. Unnecessarily going to a place of danger danger where he is not required to go, the employer is in no way responsible for the resulting injury. (E. L.) George Fowler, Sons & Co. v. Brooks, 70 Pac. Rep. 600; 65 Kans. 861. The duty of a master to furnish his employé a safe place to work has no reference to places at or about which the employé has no business to be. (E. L.) Montgomery Cotton Mills v. Bowdoin, 58 S. Rep. 732; 000 Ala. App. 000. The mere fact that an employé engaged to do safe work at a safe place is injured while attempting to do a dangerous act not connected with his usual employment, does not, in the absence of evidence that he was directed to do it by someone in authority raise any question of liability on the part of the employer. (E. L.) Pfeffer v. Stein, 26 App. Div. 535; 50 Supp. 516. An employé left a moving train, entered a liquor store, secured several bottles of beer and then attempted to get on the train. He was injured while so doing, and it was held that the injury did not occur in the course of the employment. Ruling of Washington Industrial Commission. A railroad employé was killed at a switch, by the derailment of an engine, on which he was riding, without the knowledge of the conductor. The caboose was the proper place for him to ride, and people riding therein escaped injury. It was difficult to get into the caboose at the point where he boarded the engine, and he had ridden on the engine habitually. The engine, on this occasion, was running at a dangerous speed toward the switch, and it appeared that the bolt and pin which held the switch had been feloniously removed, causing the engine to jump the track. It was held that such employé was a trespasser on the engine and could not recover. (E. L.) Martin v. Kansas City, M. & B. R. Co., 27 So. Rep. 646; 77 Miss. 720. Where in an action for the death of a servant by the caving in of a railroad gravel pit, there was no proof that it was necessary or proper, in the performance of the duties of the deceased, to have placed himself between the steam shovel Unnecessarily going to a place of danger and the wall of the pit where he was killed, it was held that the defendant was not liable therefor. (E. L.) Baker's Adm'r v. Lexington & E. Ry. Co. 89 S. W. Rep. 149; 28 Ky. Law Rep. 140. Water had accumulated at the pit bottom of a mine to the depth of about eighteen inches at the cage, gradually shallowing back for about thirty feet. Only one cage was available for carrying eight men to the surface and there were about 200 men to be raised. Each was eager to ascend and all of them waded in the water and stood in it for from thirty to forty-five minutes. The traffic near the pit bottom had ceased and the men could, with safety, have waited on the dry ground, until their turn came to ascend. One workman suffered deafness caused by a chill arising from the exposure of standing in the water, and applied for compensation. The court held that the workman had failed to prove that his incapacity was due to accident, or that it arose out of his employment, and compensation was refused. Alexander M'Luckie, v. John Watson (Edinburgh Court of Sessions, First Division, June 12, 1913.) See "Market World and Chronicle," July 12, 1913, p. 56. An employé of a contractor to electrify the lines of a railroad company was not required to perform work on tracks enclosed by fences used by express trains, but only alongside such tracks. There were several crossings within a short distance from where he worked. It was held that the contractor was not liable for injuries sustained by the employé in consequence of his entering on the tracks and being struck by the train. As to the railroad company it was held, he was a trespasser. (E. L.) Shea v. Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co., 147 App. Div. 660; 132 Supp. 612. A servant knowing of the defective condition of an elevator voluntarily took passage thereon for his own purpose and not in obedience to any direction from any superior. He was injured through a fall of the elevator in consequence of its defective condition. It was held that the master was Unnecessarily going to a place of danger not liable. (E. L.) Lax-Fos Co. v. Rowlett, 139 S. W. Rep. 836; 144 Ky. 690. Where an employé, at the time of an injury, was not engaged in the discharge of his duty, but he had placed himself in a known situation of danger, and but for so doing, he would not have been injured, it was held that he could not recover. (E. L.) Therriault v. England, 116 Pac. R. 581; 43 Mont. 376. An employé left his place of work when the machinery stopped and went to a place known to him to be dangerous and to which he was not called by his work. While there he was injured by the machinery being started and it was held he could not recover. (E. L.) Schmnoske v. Asphalt Ready Roofing Co., 129 App. Div. 500; 114 Supp. 87. A miner fell while crossing a chute in the mine. A few minutes later he was demonstrating to a fellow workman how he fell and while so demonstrating he fell again. It was contended that the second fall caused the injury and that therefore it was not received in the course of the employment. There was some dispute as to the conversation which the workman had after his fall, as it was held in the workman's native language. Compensation was awarded. Mileta v. Newport Mining Co., Mich. Indus. Acc. Bd., July,.1913. A section hand was injured by being struck by an engine while crossing the tracks in the yards. It was held that if it was reasonably necessary for him to cross the tracks at a time and place where his presence could have been reasonably anticipated, the master owed him the duty of looking out for him and giving timely signals by whistle or bell, and his right to recover would not depend upon whether or not the tracks at the point where crossed were used by the public. (E. L.) Cincinnati N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co. v. Troxell, 137 S. W. Rep. 543; 143 Ky. 765. In an action by a servant for personal injuries from being squeezed between a door and the frame of an elevator while crossing an elevator shaft covered by trapdoors, where it Injuries at mealtime was so generally used by the employés as a passageway as to become known to the officers and superintendent of defendant, though an adequate passage had been provided elsewhere, it was held that the defendant was chargeable with negligence, having acquiesced in the general use of the trap door by its employés. (E. L.) Reynolds v. Seneca Falls Mfg. Co., 137 App. Div. 446; 122 Supp. 797. 11. Injuries at mealtime. Where an employer provides a place for his employés to eat, or directs or permits them to go to a place for that purpose, he owes to them the same duty of protection from danger there that he does at the place where such employés work. (E. L.) Heldmaier v. Cobbs, 96 Ill. App. 315; aff'd 62 N. E. Rep. 853; 195 Ill. 172. A corporation permitting its servants to use a building on the premises, as a place in which to eat their dinner, owes to them the duty not to injure them by its negligence while they are using the building in the usual manner, and it is liable for such injuries although the building is used for other purposes and the servant would not have been injured had he remained at his usual place of work. (E. L.) Carnegie Steel Co. v. Rowan, 39 Ohio Cir. Ct. 202. The relation of master and servant, in so far as it involves the obligation of master to protect the servant is not suspended during the noon hour, where the master expressly, or by fair implication, invites his servants to remain on the premises in the immediate vicinity of the work. (E. L.) Thomas v. Wisconsin Central Ry. Co., 122 N. W. Rep. 456; 108 Minn. 485. Where, in a manufacturing establishment, it was impracticable for the employés to leave the building for their noonday meal, and the master allowed only thirty minutes for their luncheon, and it was contemplated that they should remain in the building where they worked to eat it, it was held that the relation of master and servant continued during the thirty minutes allowed for luncheon. (E. L.) Riley v. Cudahy Packing Co., 117 N. W. Rep. 765; |