Hayes

Respondent was awarded by a jury a verdict for $5,000 for personal injuries received while employed in filling buckets with coal in the hold of a vessel belonging to appellant. The circumstances of the accident, the extent of the damage and the particular ground for charging responsibility to defendant are disclosed in the following allegations of the complaint:

It is also alleged that the defendant had knowledge of the defective condition of the bucket, but negligently continued to use it till plaintiff was injured. The answer expressly admitted the employment and the allegations concerning the nature of the work, the character of the accident and the extent of the injury, but denied the other material averments of the complaint and set up as an affirmative defense that-the injury was caused by the fault and negligence of the plaintiff, and, furthermore, that said injury was chargeable to the risks of plaintiff’s employment at the time of the accident, “which said risks had been and were duly assumed by the plaintiff.”

From the standpoint of respondent the case involves primarily the application of the familiar legal doctrine, declared in the decisions over and over again, that…