Spivok v. Independent Sash & Door Co.

HENSHAW, J.

Plaintiff recovered judgment following the verdict of a jury for injuries sustained under the following circumstances: He was a carpenter, in the employ of the defendant. There was a scaffold called a “canopy” used in connection with the work. This canopy was a platform attached to the building and about fourteen feet above the ground level. The canopy was.used in connection with the wooden forms employed to hold the concrete in the construction of the building. The floor of the canopy could be reached by a stairway inside of the building leading to an upper floor, the canopy floor being four or five feet lower than the floor of the structure. There were ladders, however, which could

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be used for the descent, or a workman could jump or swing himself down. Instead, however, the workmen, for their own convenience, seemed to have adopted another method of reaching the canopy. This was by a stepladder nine or ten feet long, which reached a ‘‘transom bar’’ three or four feet below the canopy floor. The workmen stepped from the ladder to the transom bar, and standing on the transom bar climbed on to the platform, which was about three feet higher than the transom bar. This climb was of course not difficult for any man and not unusual for one in the employment of a carpenter. Plaintiff had used this method of access to the canopy. Indeed, he had been at work upon the canopy for a day or two previous to his accident. Upon the canopy, and, indeed, this was one of the purposes of its use, were the forms for the concrete work, which were there piled up. The plaintiff upon the occasion of the accident had climbed the ladder, stood upon the transom bar, put one knee upon the canopy floor, and seized (doubtless by inadvertence) one of these forms in the effort to pull himself on to the platform. The form being loose, of course gave way and he was precipitated to the floor beneath, sustaining injury to his ankle.

The complaint charged a negligent construction of the scaffold because of which “the floor fell apart from said scaffold when grasped by the plaintiff.” But all the evidence, including that of the plaintiff, discredited and disproved this charge, plaintiff himself and all of his witnesses testifying that the scaffold was properly-constructed and was and remained perfectly firm. The second charge of negligence against the defendant avers that the defendant “furnished to the said plaintiff as a means of climbing upon said scaffolding a stepladder of such a defective and improper length, size, and construction as to compel him to reach from the top of said ladder a considerable distance to the floor of said scaffold in an effort to climb upon said scaffold, and the said defective and improper stepladder, together with the said above-mentioned unsafe, defective, and dangerous scaffold, caused the said plaintiff to fall to the ground.”