212 Pa. 86 | Pa. | 1905
Opinion by
On November 19, 1900, the husband of the appellee, while looking through the door of a building in process of erection on North Third street, in the city of Philadelphia, was struck •by a stone sill that fell upon him and his death followed as a result several hours afterwards. The sill had been placed on the front wall in green mortar at a height of about eighteen feet from the pavement. The men, who were erecting the wall, when about to quit work, covered the top of it with a board, and in doing so one of them pushed the sill off.
On October 2,1900, Weil, the appellant, and the only defendant against whom the plaintiff proceeded after her amendment striking put the names of those who had been sued with him, entered into a contract in writing with Clayton C. Thackery for the erection of the building, and Thackery in turn made a contract with one Sweeney for the brickwork. The answers to requests by the defendant for specific instructions were that if Thackery entered upon the work of constructing the building under his written contract witli Weil, he was an - independent contractor so long as he worked under it, with its terms unchanged, and that i f, while it remained unchanged he entered into the one testified to with Sweeney, and the latter, at the time of the accident, was carrying it putas made, the defendant, notwithstanding any change of the contract relation between
In support óf the allegation of negligence: there was'testimony that the sill had been pushed off the. wall by a colored ■workman in trying to cover the top of the brickwork. Wright, a bricklayer, who was helping to cover the wall,.testified that.it was customary, while, working on a public .street and laying a sill in the way this .one was laid, to provide- .some protection from danger along the footway, and_ admitted' that; when the sill was put in the green mortar no precautions had been-taken to prevent its falling. -.In being pushed off it was bound to fall on the pavement, and.at a point where it might strike a.person guilty of no negligence in standing or walking where it fell. ■ In
The plaintiff offered in evidence an ordinance of the city of Philadelphia, its pnrpose being “to prevent accidents during the construction, repair and alterations of buildings in the city of Philadelphia.” It was admitted under objection; and under our cases its admission was not error: Lederman v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 165 Pa. 118; Foote v. American Product Company, 195 Pa. 190; Herron v. City of Pittsburg, 204 Pa. 509; Ubelmann v. American Ice Company, 209 Pa. 398. Proof of the violation of the ordinance was not, in itself, any evidence of the defendant’s negligence, and the distinct instructions given to the jury were that if they should find that a reasonably prudent person, under the circumstances, would not have erected a shed over the pavement, or given warning of the danger from the erection of the building to those on the pavement, the defendant was not negligent, notwithstanding the ordinance.
None of the assignments can be sustained and the judgment is affirmed.