Stokes v. New York Life Insurance

Negligence — Labor Law, sections 18 and 19, construed — scaffold used daily for washing ceilings not within meaning of said sections — erroneous charge. A scaffold ór platform on horses, used daily by janitors and their help for washing ceilings, is not a scaffold within the meaning of sections 18 and 19 of the Labor Law, and it is error to charge in effect that said statute makes the master liable for the negligence of his contractor or servants in building the same.

Appeal by the defendant, The New York Life Insurance Company, from a judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the piaintiffi, entered in the office of the" clerk of the county of Kings on the 15th day of February, 1905, upon the verdict of a jury for $325, and also from an Order entered in. said clerk’s office on the 28th day of February, 1905,’ denying the defendant’s motion for .a new trial made Upon the rhimites. The. action was' for personal injuries from negligence, The déféndant owns a large building and keeps; a corps of men continually employed to clean it and do the ordinary repairs to it from day to day. These men or some of them, including 'the plaintiff, were instructed- by the . janitor to wash the ceiling of one of the rooms'. To do this they set up wooden horses and put the necessary beams .and planks on -top of them to make a platform or scaffold -twelve feet high to work on. These things, and tíre like, were all kept on-hand in the building by the defendant for daily use. The plaintiff testified that he did not help put up the platform, and the judge charged that if he did he could not recover. The plaintiff fell from the platform while at work washing' the ceiling. He testified that one of the planks tilted or tipped sidewise under bis weight, and that the cause was that it was warped.