Coyne v. Byrne
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort, under the employers’ liability act and at common law, by a workman for personal injuries sustained on January 31, 1910, when the plaintiff was in the employ of the defendant, who was engaged as a contractor in constructing a school building in the town of Stoneham.
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Tort, under the employers’ liability act and at common law, by a workman for personal injuries sustained on January 31, 1910, when the plaintiff was in the employ of the defendant, who was engaged as a contractor in constructing a school building in the town of Stoneham. Writ dated April 16, 1910. In the Superior Court the case was tried before King, J. It appeared that at the time of the accident the plaintiff was assisting one O’Toole, a staging builder of the defendant, to raise to a higher level the staging outside the brick walls, which had been built up some distance above the level of…
1Opinion of the CourtHammond, J.
The manifest office of a “spreader” is to keep the sides of the window frame from buckling under the pressure of the brick wall in process of construction; and the defendant testified that he never knew one to be used for any other purpose.
The building was incomplete. It is natural for workmen in moving about under such circumstances to avail themselves more or less for the time being of almost any object within reach which promises the slightest aid. Even if, as the evidence for the plaintiff tended to show, a workman in passing between the outside *223and inside stages sometimes used a spreader…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Gillette v. General Electric Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1904
3Cited by2 opinions
- Morrissey v. Boston & Maine RailroadMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1918
- Coyne v. ByrneMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1914