A case lying between the above was one in which the son of the proprietor of a hotel was employed to assist his father and look after his interests. A disagreement with an employee as to terms led to the latter's leaving employment, whereupon the son engaged in a dispute and an assault. A judgment for damages and exemplary damages was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Minnesota, the master being said to be charged with responsibility of knowing what sort of person he invests with authority to act for him. (Schmidt v. Minor, p. 85.)

INJURIES TO THIRD PERSONS.

The liability of an employer to third persons for the injurious acts of his employees was affirmed in the case of City of Indianapolis v. Lee (p. 103), the rule carrying so far as to entail responsibility where the immediate employee has directed an outsider to operate the employer's instrumentality through which the injury occurred. This principle was held to make an employer of strike guards responsible for their acts in assaulting and arresting an innocent bystander under the assumption that he was one of a party engaged in attacking the employer's property. (McInerney v. United Railroads of San Francisco, p. 100.) However, exemplary damages would not be allowed unless the act was done with the knowledge and approval of the employer.

SAFE PLACE AND APPLIANCES.

The mining law of Arkansas requires a circulation of 200 cubic feet of air per minute at all working places. A suit for damages, following an explosion of gas, due to insufficient ventilation, was decided in the plaintiff's favor over evidence that it was not practical to comply with the statute. The common-law defenses had been submitted, and disallowed by the jury, while the question of practicability was said to be one for the legislature and not for the court. (Central Coal & Coke Co. v. Barnes, p. 123.)

Building operations are regulated by a New York statute which devolves upon the employer the responsibility of supplying an adequate scaffold. The court of appeals of the State held that a temporary flooring upon crossbeams of a coal trestle in process of construction was a scaffold within the purview of the act, reversing the trial court on this point. (Ross v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., p. 124.) Inasmuch as the employer has a positive duty with regard to scaffolds, the defense of assumed risk would not be available.

Failure to guard a projecting set screw on a revolving shaft was held by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals to violate the employers' liability law of Alabama with regard to defective conditions of machinery, etc., entitling an injured man to a judgment

for damages for injuries. (Standard Portland Cement Co. v. Foley, p. 123.) The employee was said to have a right to a safe place to work, without being required to make an investigation for himself. Factory conditions were also involved in the case, Naylor v. Holland-St. Louis Sugar Co. (p. 125), decided by the appellate court of Indiana. In this case a workman was installing a coal conveyor near some boilers on which were defective and unguarded water gauges, of which fact he was ignorant, though it was known to the defendants. An injury resulting from the explosion of one of the water gauges was held to entitle him to sue for damages.

Approximating the situation in which the construction of a scaffold was involved is the case, George Leary Construction Co. v. Matson (p. 126), in which the United States Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judgment in favor of a workman injured by defective timbers while driving piles. The selection of the timbers was made by a foreman, and the work being done on a scow, the employee was held to be a seaman, entitled to recover under the provisions of the Federal law classifying employees on vessels.

The construction of the employers' liability law in Arizona was involved in Consolidated Arizona Smelting Co. v. Egich (p. 98). The liability created by this act is not to be evaded by furnishing a safe place and safe tools or implements, if nevertheless the condition or conditions of the occupation are responsible for an injury. The danger need not be inherent in the occupation, but the conditions may be responsible for the injury, and under the law the only risk the employee assumes is that of his own negligence.

CONTRACTORS.

An independent contractor has no claim on his principal where the control of the mode of work rests in his own hands; but where the method employed by the contractor is changed by the principal and he assumes control and direction thereof the ordinary relation of master and servant follows, with a corresponding liability for any injuries that may occur. (Gammage v. International Agricultural Corp., p. 90.) The rule was also applicable where an employee of the principal was turned over to an independent contractor without any knowledge on his part of the transfer, his act being merely one of obedience to the directions of the person whom he was accustomed to expect instructions from. (King v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. R. Co., p. 91.)

VOLUNTEERS.

A volunteer, by which is meant a person engaged in employment without the request or assent of the employer, has no claim on the

person for whom he is rendering service, occupying practically the position of a trespasser. However, even a trespasser must not be recklessly imperiled, so that one volunteering to assist the driver of a wagon was held entitled to recover damages for injury caused by a sudden turn of which no warning was given. (Rook v. Schultz, p. 106.) The same rule was applied in a Connecticut case (Kalmich v. White, p. 92) in which a nine-year-old boy had been requested by the driver of a truck to assist in some work that he was doing. The circumstances of the injury were identical with those in the Rook case noted above, and the denial of any remedy by the trial court was said by the supreme court of errors to be unjustified, and a new trial was ordered.

UNLAWFUL EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN.

The statute of Arkansas forbidding the employment of children under 14 years of age was held valid and to bar defenses of assumed risk and contributory negligence when a boy was employed in violation of the act. Unlawful employment was said to constitute negligence per se (Terry Dairy Co. v. Nalley, p. 93.) However, since the lad had misrepresented his age, and the employer had been denied permission to introduce evidence as to his actual age, a new trial was ordered. The doctrine that prohibited employment is negligence per se was limited by the Supreme Court of Alabama. (Birmingham News Co. v. Andrews, p. 95.) The court held that if the violation merely furnished a causal condition and was not the proximate cause of the injury, it did not entail liability. The injured boy was at work at night in violation of the law, but not in a prohibited place of employment. The injury was received in the course of a playful diversion from employment, and a judgment for damages was reversed and the cause remanded for a determination of the liability without reference to the statute prohibiting night work.

Employment in a coal mine is forbidden by a West Virginia statute for children under 14 years of age. A boy under 14 was injured while switching loaded cars in and about the tipple of the mine, and this was held by the trial court not to be within the prohibition of the law. The supreme court of appeals of this State, however, took the opposite view, and held that the place where he was employed was covered by the statute, so that a verdict rendered by the jury should be made the judgment of the court. (Mangus v. Proctor-Eagle Coal Co., p. 97.) In this case the employer had contributed to the workmen's compensation fund of the State, but this was held to be no bar to a suit for damages, as where employment is unlawful, neither party to the contract is protected by the workmen's compensation act.

ADMIRALTY.

The right of employees in and about vessels to recover damages for injuries is involved in much difficulty. The Supreme Court of the United States had before it recently a case (Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, p. 83) involving a variety of uncertainties, the final outcome being an entire loss of recovery for a fatal accident. A stevedore who worked in the hold of a vessel was killed, and a claim for compensation was allowed by the State industrial commission, but annulled by the supreme court of the State a year and a day after the death. Action for damages was then brought in admiralty, relying on the State law giving the right to sue for fatal accidents. Judgment was in plaintiff's favor in the district court, but the supreme court held that as the statute giving the right to sue contained the limitation of one year, no action could be brought at the time of the beginning of the present suit, and the case was dismissed. It was recognized in the foregoing case that actions for death based upon the statutes of the States could be brought in maritime cases, and the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a judgment made in accordance with this principle in White v. John W. Cowper Co. (p. 82). This case arose under the New York law, no recovery for death being provided by maritime law, but the State law is construed to apply when the injury takes place within its territorial

waters.

The question of what law applies was involved in a rather conflicting fashion in The Hanna Nielsen (p. 77), the injured man being a Norwegian on board a ship of Norwegian nationality. He signed on at Portland, Me., and was injured in British territorial waters at Gibraltar. A judgment allowing for cure and maintenance was reversed by the circuit court of appeals on the ground that the ship had complied with the obligations of the Norwegian law, holding also that the American law had no application, and if any claim was based on British law it should have been proved.

A case that covers an interesting portion of history is one in which suit was brought on account of the death of a longshoreman in 1916. (Kennedy v. Cunard S. S. Co., p. 78.) At the time of this injury the New York compensation law was supposed to cover the accident, and benefits had been awarded. On the finding by the Supreme Court of the United States that this provision of the law was unconstitutional, the payment of compensation was stopped and this action brought. The case was dismissed in the trial court, but the apellate division reversed that decision and ordered a new trial, discussing at considerable length the status of maritime injuries. A point of interest, in view of the finding in Berry v. M. F. Donovan & Sons (p. 226) is the statement in the Kennedy case that as

the contract was a maritime one the State statute can not be read into it; in the Berry case the opposite was held.

The remaining case under this head is one classifying the employment of an employer loading freight on a ship at a dock, the injury being declared to be maritime (Crane v. Pac. Steamship Co., p. 81); however, this was held not sufficient ground for removing the case from the common law to the admiralty docket.

RAILROADS-FEDERAL STATUTE.

Assumption of risk.-Though modifying in a large degree the common-law defenses, the Federal employers' liability act applicable to railroad companies permits the defense of assumption of risk. This was applied by the Supreme Court of the United States, though with a strong dissent, to a case in which a locomotive engineer was held to have assumed the risk of the position of a mail crane by which he was struck while leaning out of a cab to examine the engine while it was running. (So. Pac. Co. v. Berkshire, p. 107.) A similar finding was made in DeBaur v. Lehigh Valley R. Co. (p. 116). In this case a flagman sent back to give warning of a work train was struck by another train and killed. No recovery was allowed on the failure to prove negligence on the part of the company, the doctrine of assumption of risk being operative.

Damages.-State practice was said to warrant the introduction of evidence as to the prospects of promotion of a fireman killed by accident in Texas. (Payne v. Allen, p. 108.) Damages were allowed under the Federal liability law, using as a basis the increased earnings that would have accrued if the anticipated promotion had taken place. This finding was approved by the State court of appeals as permissible under Texas procedure, ruling that the evidence should not be refused simply because a Federal law was being applied.

Waiver. The Supreme Court of the United States sustained the validity of a contract by an express messenger waiving all rights to sue either his employer or the carrier railroad in case of personal injury. (Wells Fargo & Co. v. Taylor, p. 109.) A State court had given damages despite the contract, while a Federal (district) court enjoined the recovery of the judgment. On appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals, this decision was reversed, leaving the suitor free to collect the judgment, but on further appeal, the Supreme Court made the ruling indicated; i. e., that no recovery could be had. Place of suit.-An attempt was made in Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. McGinley (p. 117) to compel the bringing of a suit within the State where the injury was received. The action was under the Federal employers' liability act, under which State and Federal