52 A.2d 314 | Pa. | 1947
Defendant appeals from judgment on a verdict for plaintiff in his suit to recover for personal injury. The verdict establishes that the injury resulted from defendant's negligence. The defendant contends that the learned court erred in not instructing the jury to find for the defendant and that this court should now reverse and enter judgment in defendant's favor. As the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict is not challenged, we come at once to the legal contention.
Defendant is engaged in manufacturing steel and steel products. John H. Brooks and Sons, a partnership, is engaged, inter alia, in the excavation of land. Defendant awarded to Brooks a contract "to furnish all necessary labor, material and equipment required to excavate for cooling pits at our Steel Mill, all in accordance with verbal instructions given you by our representative." The dimensions of the pit were: depth 7 feet, width 10 feet and length 100 feet. In excavating, Brooks used a truck crane with a boom; the site of the pit was in an area over part of which defendant worked a traveling crane. After the excavation had been in process about half a day, defendant's overhead crane negligently came in contact with the boom operated by Brooks, the contractor, and seriously injured plaintiff, who was employed by Brooks in the excavation.
Defendant contends that it is liable for workmen's compensation as though plaintiff were one of its employes, *416
and is therefore not liable in a common law action for negligence; that while plaintiff's immediate employer, Brooks, is liable for workmen's compensation, the defendant is also liable, as a statutory employer under sections 203 (
Section 203 (
Section 302 (b) (
Section 105 (
The excavation necessary to create the cooling pit was not "part of the [defendant's] regular business" as those words are used in the statute. Defendant's regular *417
business was the manufacture of steel and steel products. Brooks was an independent contractor employed to do part of the work required in the construction for defendant of a plant facility to be used in defendant's manufacturing business; section 105 excluded such a contractor from the meaning of the term contractor as used in sections 203 and 302. SeeMcDonald v. Levinson Steel Co.,
Judgment affirmed.