Globe Indemnity Co. v. Henderson

The plaintiffs recovered a judgment against the defendant in the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars for damages and the defendant has appealed, bringing up the judgment-roll and a bill of exceptions.

Morris & Muller, as general contractors, were engaged in erecting a brick garage on the southeast corner of Broadway and Twenty-fourth Streets, in Oakland. George L. Masow, one of the plaintiffs, was working for the contractors as a carpenter, and at the time of the accident hereinafter mentioned was standing on some planking which rested on the rafters. The defendant, H. B. Henderson, as an independent contractor, was engaged in hoisting the rafters into place. The rafters, more properly called trusses, were made of wood and after each one had been constructed it" was about sixty feet long from tip to tip, about twelve feet high, and, when the planks had been nailed together, the dimensions of a cross-section were eight by ten inches. The weight of one of these trusses was such that the defendant was using a gin pole thirty-seven feet six inches high, supported by four guy lines. While one of the trusses Was being raised into place one of the guy lines tore loose, the gin pole…