164 Mass. 42 | Mass. | 1895
This is an action of tort to recover for personal injuries caused .by the fall of an iron block from a derrick upon the plaintiff, who was working in the defendants’ employ. The fall was due to the breaking of a rope at a point where it had been spliced. The weight attached to the rope was not sufficient to break or to endanger the apparatus if in proper condition. The main question is whether the judge before whom the case was tried was right in refusing to rule that the mere breaking of the rope was not prima facie evidence of negligence on the part of the defendants, and in instructing the jury that, if they found that the rope was defective while in the defendants’ care, that fact was evidence which, unexplained, would warrant them in finding that the defendants were negligent.
We are of opinion that the instruction was correct. Res ip>sa loquitur, — which is merely a short way of saying that, so far as the court can see, the jury from their experience as men of the world may be warranted in thinking that an accident of this particular kind commonly does not happen except in consequence of negligence, and that therefore there is a presumption of fact, in the absence of explanation or other evidence which the jury believe, that it happened in consequence of negligence in this case. Presumptions of fact, or those general propositions of experience which form the major premises of particular conclusions of this sort, usually are for the jury. The court ordinarily confines itself to considering whether it can say that there is no such presumption, or, in other words, that such accidents commonly are not due to negligence. See Doyle v. Boston & Albany Railroad, 145 Mass. 386, 387, 388; Howser v. Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad, 80 Md. 146.
It may be true that a rope properly spliced is stronger at the splice than elsewhere. But the jury might infer from the breaking that this rope had not been spliced properly. One witness who examined it testified that, so far as he could see or understand, the splice drew apart. At all events the rope broke at the
We cannot say that the plaintiff was negligent. He had a right to expect due care from the defendants as to their permanent appliances. There was evidence that he was employed to do what he was doing; his position was seen by one of the defendants, and it may be that to do his work called on him at moments to be nearly under the block. Snow v. Housatonic Railroad, 8 Allen, 441, 450. Hachett v. Middlesex Manuf. Co. 101 Mass. 101. Spicer v. South Boston Iron Co. 138 Mass. 426. Kilroy v. Foss, 161 Mass. 138. Exceptions overruled.