McVey v. Gerrald

The question on this appeal is whether the servant of a master, who is a farmer, is entitled to recover for injuries sustained in the scope of his employment by a fall caused by a defect in a stationary ladder in the barn of his master.

The plaintiff was a laborer about twenty-seven years of age, and the defendant was a farmer, who employed the laborer to help in hauling the farmer’s wheat in the straw into the latter’s bank-barn and put it away in the mow. The barn was large and the roof high. The loaded wagon was driven from the inclined way onto the barn floor between the two mows. Because…