102 Ga. 64 | Ga. | 1897
Blackman, an employee of the Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Augusta, was hurt by the falling of a scaffold upon him while he was attempting, together with other employees of the’ company, to move an iron wheel from a wagon into the power-house of the company by means of a block and tackle attached to the scaffolding; and he sued the company for damages, alleging that the falling of the scaffold was due to the negligence of the defendant in not having it properly supported or braced, and that the defendant was negligent in not giving him notice or warning of its unsafe or insecure condition. On the trial of the case, at the conclusion of plaintiff’s evidence, the court granted a nonsuit, and to this he excepted.
The following appeared from the evidence: The scaffold was built according to the directions and under the personal supervision of one Conners, who was defendant’s general foreman at the power-house, for the purpose of moving the wheel, which weighed over 5,000 pounds. The scaffold- was constructed thus: An upright post, about 10 or 12 feet high and about 10 or 12 inches “in size,” was placed opposite a window of the second story of the defendant’s building, so that a wagon could pass between it and the building, and on this post, and extending from, it northward through the window and into the building, were a piece of timber and three planks, the north end of which rested on a pile of blocks to keep the timber from lying on the window-sill, the blocks being higher than the sill and resting on the floor of the building. The scaffold was braced east, west and south, but not on the north side or inside of the building. To the timbers extending from the post into the window a block and tackle were attached. The wheel was to be carried through a door directly under the window. On the occasion in question the wagon from which the wheel was to be moved was driven directly under the scaffold and in front of this door. The wheel was hoisted from the wagon by means of the block and tackle, the wagon was driven from under, and the wheel was lowered nearly to the ground and shoved towards the sill of the door. It had to be shoved a distance of two feet; and
We are first to inquire whether the plaintiff was a volunteer in the sense that the duty he undertook to perform was so dissociated from the duty he was engaged to perform as to relieve the master from liability for the consequences of his negligence. According to the evidence in the record, the plaintiff was specially employed in the capacity of engineer; the special duties resulting from this employment being such as related to the running of the engines of the defendant company in its plant, which was employed in the generation of power by means of electricity, but in addition to the special duties assigned to him in consequence of this peculiar employment, he was required to perform such other and further duties as Conners, the general foreman of the plant, might see proper to assign to him. For the purpose of assisting in the removal of the machinery, in the handling of which he was injured, he was temporarily withdrawn from his special duties as engineer, by Conners, the person in authority over him. Conners, according to the evidence, had the power to command, and under his contract of employment it was the duty of the plaintiff to obey. It follows then that the service he undertook, in pursuance of the direction of Conners, was directly in the line of his duty under his contract of employment, and therefore he can not stand as one who has voluntarily abandoned the performance of the special duty for
The principle here announced was recognized and applied in the case of Cheeney v. Ocean Steamship Company, 92 Ga. 726, in a well-considered opinion of the present Chief Justice. In that case this court said: “If Hoffman had authority to employ such men as were necessary to effect the work with reasonable and ordinary safety, or authority to direct that one of the employees should attend the hatch, he was, as to the duty of supplying a “hatch-tender,” the alter ego of the company, and was not a fellow-servant of the other employees in such sense as to cast upon them'the risk of his failure to discharge that duty.” So that, whatever rules may elsewhere prevail, in this State coemployment is not, and can not be, the test of fellow-service. As we have before seen, Conners, the foreman of the plant, was invested by the master with the authority to assign the plaintiff to the duties which he undertook to perform, and, acting under the direction of such a person, the only one who had authority to speak for the cor
These considerations lead us to' the conclusion that in granting a nonsuit, under the facts of the present case, the court committed error.
Judgment reversed.