Flynn v. Boston Electric Light Co.
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort, under the employers’ liability act, St. 1887, c. 270, for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff while in the defendant’s employ.
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Tort, under the employers’ liability act, St. 1887, c. 270, for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff while in the defendant’s employ. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Hardy, J., it appeared that the plaintiff, a lineman in the employ of the defendant, was engaged with five other men, all in .the defendant’s employ, stringing an overhead electric light wire which ran through the branches of a tree; that one Grant, who was the foreman of the gang, and who was accustomed to assist the men under him by performing various acts of manual labor when the occasion required it,…
1Opinion of the CourtBarker, J.
Assuming that Grant’s principal duty was-that of superintendence, he was also a workman laboring with his own hands, and the defendant is not made answerable to the plaintiff for Grant’s negligence except in the exercise of his superintendence. We are of the opinion that the evidence would not justify a finding that any negligence in his exercise of superintendence contributed to' the plaintiff’s injury.
A wire had been passed through the branches of a tree into which the plaintiff was sent to cut off a limb. When cut, this lodged upon another lower down, and then the plaintiff, standing upon…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Higgins v. DeweyMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1871
3Cited by12 opinions
- Commonwealth v. SpiropoulosMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1911
- Fritz v. Western Union Telegraph Co.Utah Supreme Court · 1903
- McPhee v. New England Structural Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1905
- Meehan v. Holyoke Street Railway Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1904
- Joseph v. George C. Whitney Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1900
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