Zeigenmeyer v. Goetz Lime & Cement Co.

88 S.W. 139, 113 Mo. App. 330, 1905 Mo. App. LEXIS 217
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided June 19, 1905·Published·Cited by 13 cases

Opinion

NORTONI, J.

(after stating the facts). — The finding of the jury for the appellant on the second count [335] of the petition as above stated, eliminated from the case the charge of negligence in exploiting an extraordinary blast, and the finding for the respondent upon the first count of the petition affirmed that appellant was negligent in failing to provide respondent with a reasonably safe place in which to carry on his work, so that, as the case stands before us, the recovery is predicated upon the failure to furnish a safe place to work. The question of safe place is the only question with which we are called upon to deal. The question presented for our decision is, granting all the facts to be true as stated, does the law require appellant to furnish a place at all times reasonably safe to its servants who are conducting. business for it, the very nature of which business renders the place temporarily unsafe at times? •

The law does not require the master to furnish an absolutely safe place in every instance for the servant to work for the reason that the law recognizes that such requirement would be unreasonable on its part and impossible of fulfilment on the employer’s part, in view of the fact that there are many undertakings and employments which are dangerous within themselves and about the conduct of which no absolutely safe and secure place could be furnished. Therefore, the obligation' which the law places upon the master is to some extent a relative obligation and only requires him to exercise reasonable care to provide as safe a place for the performance of the services as the character of the work to be done will permit, or in other words, the law requires the master to furnish his servant a suitable place to' do his work, where, by the exercise of ordinary care on his part, he may perform his work with safety or subject only to such hazards as are necessarily incident to the employ-. ment. [Bradley v. Railroad, 138 Mo. 293, 39 S. W. 763; Sullivan v. India Mfg. Co., 113 Mass. 396; O’Connell v. Clark, 48 N. Y. 74-75; Fugler v. Bothe, 117 Mo. 475, 22 S. W. 1113; Livengood v. Joplin, etc., L. & Z. Co., 179 Mo. 229, 77 S. W. 1077 ; 20 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (2 [336] Ed.), 55-57.] To follow the question still further, we find the rule of safe place is not applicable to every state of facts, nor is the principle of safe place pertinent in every case that may arise out of the multiplicity of employments and diversity of risks encountered. It has one well defined and thoroughly established exception. It is that the master is not required to furnish his servant a safe place in which to work where the danger is temporary only and when it arises from the hazard and progress of the work itself, and is known to the servant. [Davis v. Mining Co., 117 Fed. 122-124; Bradley v. Railroad, 138 Mo. 293, 39 S. W. 763; O’Connell v. Clark, 48 N. Y. 74-75; Armour v. Hahn, 111 U. S. 313-318; Finalyson v. Utica, Min., etc., Co., 14 C. C. A. 492-494; Durst v. Carnegie Steel Co., 173 Pa. St. 162-165; Whittaker v. Bent, 167 Mass. 588-589; Meehan v. Speirs Mfg. Co., 172 Mass. 375; Browne v. King, 100 Fed. 561; Anderson v. Min. Co. (Utah), 50 Pac. 815; Railroad v. Jackson, 65 Fed. 48; Livengood v. Joplin, etc., L. & Z. Co., 179 Mo. 229; 20 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (2 Ed.), 57; City of Minneapolis v. Lundin, 58 Fed. 525; Kennedy v. Grace, etc., Co., 92 Fed. 116; Petaja v. Aurora Iron Min. Co., 106 Mich. 463; Beique v. Hosmer, 169 Mass. 541; Porter v. Silver Creek, etc., Coal Co., 84 Wis. 418; Clark v. Liston, 54 Ill. App. 578.] Indeed, the Amer. & Eng. Ency. of Law, vol. 20 (2 Ed.), at page 57, states a well-formulated rule on this subject in the following language: “If the place is unsafe because of the nature of the work, and a servant suffers injury in consequence thereof, he cannot hold the master liable, provided reasonable precautions were taken by the master to avoid injury. The risk of injury from such cause is one of the risks assumed by the servant.” It seems that this rule is conclusive of the case at bar. Here, the injury which befell the respondent came upon him from a falling stone resultant of a blast and was incident of the employment. It came about from the nature of the work being performed at the quarry and the master, having given plaintiff and [337] all others employed warning thereof by causing one of its employees to sound the usual alarm by whooping, ¡prior to the exploding of the blast, which was a reasonable precaution taken by the master under the circumstances of the case to aid respondent in protecting himself from injury, the respondent is certainly precluded from recovery thereby.

What has been said above on the question of non-liability of the appellant for the injury in this instance is treated of in many cases as arising by virtue of the non-application of the principle of safe place because the danger from which the injury arose was but a passing danger, temporary in its nature, and arose from the prosecution of the work itself. Upon the theory that the principle of safe place does not apply in such cases, recovery has been denied in the cases above cited. The law therefore did not require the master to furnish a safe place as against such temporary dangers and the failure to provide such safe place was not negligence on its part.

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Zeigenmeyer v. Goetz Lime & Cement Co., 88 S.W. 139, 113 Mo. App. 330, 1905 Mo. App. LEXIS 217 (Mo. Ct. App. 1905).

88 S.W. 139 (Zeigenmeyer v. Goetz Lime & Cement Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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