144 Ga. 254 | Ga. | 1915
In the bill of exceptions error is assigned upon a judgment sustaining a demurrer to a petition in a suit by a widow for the homicide of her husband, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of his employer in failing to furnish him a safe place in which to work. According to the allegations of the petition, the homicide occurred under the following circumstances: The defendant, the proprietor of a marble mill, maintained a storage yard adjoining the mill, where large blocks of marble, finished and unfinished, were stored. Certain railroad-tracks extended through the yard over which the marble was carried. In handling the marble blocks it was customary to lift them from one place and deposit them at another by means of a steam-crane, to which were attached certain chains and implements called “dogs,” which would be attached to the blocks as they were lifted and detached as they were deposited. Plaintiff’s husband was employed to work in and about the mill and yard under the direction of a named person as superintendent. One of his duties was to attach the “dogs” to blocks of marble that would be raised, and follow the crane to the place of deposit, and detach the “dogs” when the blocks were swung to the desired position of deposit. The storage yard was situated between a branch and the base of a steep hill, and on occasions of rainfall the water would run down the hill into the storage yard. Formerly ditches had been maintained to carry off the water, but they had been permitted to become so stopped up that the water remained many days at a time, slowly seeping and percolating through the ground. During the month in which the homicide occurred there had been much rain, and the ground on which the marble was stored became “soft and soggy.” On the day of the homicide, among others, there was a stack* of unfinished marble blocks on the yard, which had been
After stating the allegations of the petition, it is necessary to add but little by way of elaboration. Much that is alleged, as to knowledge by the master of the conditions existing at the time of the injury, and as to negligence upon its part, and of the want of knowledge and exercise of care upon the part of plaintiff’s husband, amounts to conclusions of the pleader, which in both instances must depend upon the ¡particular facts upon which the conclusions are based. The petition is to be'taken most strongly against the pleader. In the case of Holland v. Durham Coal &c. Co., 131 Ga. 715 (63 S.E. 290), it was said: “The general rule of law declaring the duty of a master in regard to furnishing a servant a safe place to work is usually applied to a permanent place, or one which is quasi permanent. It does not apply to such places as are constantly shifting and being transformed as a direct result of the servant’s labor, and where the work in its progress necessarily changes the character for safety of the place in which it is performed, as it progresses.” This doctrine has later been applied to the- ease of a person who was employed to cut down a tree
Judgment affirmed.