Employer and employee; crush injury involving locomotive; employer's common law duty of care; contributory negligence; safe system of work; duty to provide protective equipment.
The constant, continuing congestion of the railway yard, exacerbated by the incestuous closeness of the lines at the point where the train jerks requiring movement on the step was a situation WINDALCO is presumed to have been aware of. And being cognizant of the danger arising therefrom, ought properly to have guarded against. Surely, the protection of the health and safety of all workers in the position of Mr. O'Connor required some positive act on the part of WINDALCO, preemptive of that slipping from the steps of the locomotive in the circumstances of a congested railway yard. The foreseeability of: that eventually was painfully palpable. The reasonable employer, seized with that foresight, would have been spurred into action to take reasonable care for the safety of his workers. An employer who allows himself to be lulled into negligent somnambulism by the passage of accident free years is just as liable as the one who is alert tot he danger and cast his gaze in the other direction.
