6 Ga. App. 147 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1909
Ella Lampton sued the Cedartown Company for damages on account of personal injuries. At the conclusion of her evidence the court awarded a nonsuit; which is assigned as error. Briefly stated, the evidence makes the following case: While the plaintiff was walking on the sidewalk of Main street in Cedartown, a piece of lumber Tell from the top of a building in course of construction, owned {gf the defendant, not striking her, but causing her, in order to avoid injury therefrom, to make a sudden jump and to fall against a pile of brick, from which she received the injuries complained of. The 'building was being erected by two separate contractors for the defendant. One of these contractors was to do the woodwork, and the other the brickwork. The piece of lumber that fell was described as a “scantling,” which the contractor for the brickwork and one of his employees were using as a “straight edge,” and at the time that it fell these two men were using it in their work, one having one end of it and the other the other end. The contracts for the erection of the building were in writing, .and provided that the contractors, for a stipulated sum, were to furnish all the labor and tools, and to do all the work in the construction of the building, in a most thorough and workmanlike manner, and according to plans and specifications prepared by the architect, and to the satisfaction of the engineer of the defendant. The contract further provided that the contractors were to take all precautions required by the city authorities to protect the public from injury, and were to be responsible for any and all damages occurring to passers-by resulting from neglect of such precaution and care. The engineer testified, for the plaintiff, that all the work of erecting the building was done under the two contracts in question, and that he had no connection with the work except to see that it was done according to the plans and specifications of the architect.
The general and well-settled principle of law, that where one person employs another by contract to do a particular piece of work, reserving to himself no control over the manner in which the work is to be performed, except that when completed it shall comply with certain plans and specifications prepared by an archi