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160 Mass. 230

Kleinest v. Kunhardt

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 29, 1893

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1893-11-29

Tout, for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff while in the defendants’ employ, by the alleged negligence of the defendants. Trial in the Superior Court, before Sherman, J., who, upon the plaintiff’s evidence, at the request of the defendants, ruled that the action could not be maintained; directed a verdict for the defendants; and, at the plaintiff’s request, reported the case for the determination of this court.

Relies on O'Maley v. South Boston Gas Light Co. · Fisk v. Fitchburg Railroad

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1893-11-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently March 1911

4 federal appellate · 10 state decisions

90189319001910decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Knowlton, J.

¶1The plaintiff fell, and in falling caught one of his hands in a pulley on a washing machine in the defendants’ mill, and was injured. The floor was wet and slippery with soap and water from the washing machines, and the defendants are alleged to have been negligent in allowing the floor to be in that condition, and the pulley to be exposed near a place where workmen were expected frequently to pass.

¶2The plaintiff testified that the floor was always wet, and it appears that the condition of the floor and the pulley at the time when he entered the defendants’ service were the same as at the time of the accident. This condition was open and obvious, and it must be held that the plaintiff impliedly contracted, not only to work in this place, but also to assume the risk of accidents arising from the wet floor and the exposed pulley. O'Maley v. South Boston Gras Light Co. 158 Mass. 135. Fisk v. Fitchburg Railroad, 158 Mass. 238. The defendants were under no obligation to the plaintiff to change the condition of their works in these particulars.

¶3Judgment on the verdict.

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