Caddy v. Interborough Rapid Transit Co.

This is a master and servant negligence case. The complaint was dismissed at the close of the case. The plaintiff was a carpenter, and at the time of the accident was engaged in repairing one of the defendant’s cars in its repair shop. The car was ■ 47 feet long, 8 feet 6 inches wide, and in the position in which it was placed for repairs its roof was 16 feet' from the shop floor. A staging or

While several questions are discussed by counsel, only one requires consideration, i. e., does section 18 of the Labor Law, Laws 1897, p. 467, c. 415, apply? The solution of this question depends on whether the car and the scaffold were respectively a structure and a scaffold within the meaning of the statute. If said statute applies, the plaintiff was not guilty of contributory negligence as matter of law for assuming that the master had discharged its duty. If it does not apply, he cannot recover, for the reason that the negligence was that of co-servants.

The statute provides that:

“A person employing or directing another to perform labor of any kind in the erection, repairing, altering or painting of a house, building or structure shall not furnish or erect, or cause to be furnished or erected for the performance of such labor, scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders or other mechanical contrivances which are unsafe, unsuitable or improper, and which are not so constructed, placed and operated as to give proper protection to the life and limb of a person so employed or engaged. * * * ”

The respondent contends that the word “structure” must be given an ejusdem generis interpretation, and that as limited by the words “house” and “building” it does not include a car. I do not think the Legislature had in mind any particular kind of structure when it passed said statute. The evident purpose of the statute was to insure better protection to workingmen whose work requires them "to use scaffolds, hoists, stays, ladders, or other like mechanical contrivances under such circumstances as would imperil life or limb if the contrivance used were unsafe or insecure, and the word “structure” was intended to include all structures which, like unto a house or building, require the use of scaffolds, hoists, stays, or ladders in their construction, alteration, or repair. So the statute has been held to apply to a vessel (Chaffee v. Dry Dock Co., 68 App. Div. 578 , 73 N. Y. Supp. 908 ), to the anchorage pier of a bridge (Flannigan v. Ryan, 89 App. Div. 624 , 85 N. Y. Supp. 947 ), to a scow (Madden v. Hughes, 104 App. Div. 101 , 93 N. Y. Supp. 324 ). It has been held not to apply to ordinary staging consisting of boards laid on horses from four to six feet high put up in a room to facilitate the placing of fixtures (Schapp v. Bloomer, 181 N. Y. 125 , 73 N. E. 563 ), to a like staging moved from place to place to wash the ceiling of a room (Stokes v. New York Life Insurance Co., 112 App. Div. 77 , 98 N. Y. Supp. 135 ), to a like staging moved from place to place and readjusted by the plaintiff, and his fellow workmen (Williams v. First National Bank, 118 App. Div. 555 , 102 N. Y. Supp. 1031 ). The decision in Sutherland v. Ammann, 112 App. Div. 332 , 98 N. Y. Supp. 574 , cited by respondent, was put upon the ground that the scaffold was not used

We conclude that plaintiff was engaged in the repair of a structure, and that the platform or staging in use was a scaffold within the meaning of the labor law.

The judgment should be reversed.

Judgment reversed, and new trial granted, costs to abide the event. All concur.