simple tool doctrine
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 315 U.S. 752 - Jacob v. City of New York · 1942Most cited · 439 citing opinions
The master is not negligent in the case of defective simple tools because the possibility of injury from such tools is so slight as to impose no duty on him to see that they are free from defects in the first instance or to inspect them thereafter; or to put it another way, the master is relieved of the duty to inspect simple tools for defects because the servant's opportunity for ascertaining such defects is equal to or greater than the master's.
How often courts cite the case defining “simple tool doctrine”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “simple tool doctrine” — 436 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.