Negligence—Action for Damages—Personal Injuries—Independent Contractor.—The general rule is that one who contracts to perform certain work, lawful in itself and not inherently injurious to another, is not responsible for the negligence of a subcontractor engaged in executing the work under an independent contract.

Id.—Hauling Unfastened Bucket of Paint to Top of Building— Lack of Inherent Danger—Negligence.—The hauling up by a subcontractor of a bucket of paint with tackle to the top of a building from the ground in a five-foot passageway between two buildings, the bucket itself not even being fastened, upon an empty scaffold carrying no person to direct and guide it, and no person to look out for the bucket, which bucket falls and injures a workman, constitutes negligence almost amounting to gross negligence; and the case cannot be held to be within the rule holding the employer of an independent contractor responsible for the negligence of the latter’s employees under the doctrine of respondeat superior, where the performance of the contract in its general nature is necessarily injurious t'o a third person, or where under grant or permission to do a specific work in a careful manner, which otherwise one could not lawfully do at' all, the employer is not permitted to avoid the consequences of a negligent performance by his contractor of the duty primarily imposed upon him.

Id.—Burden of Proof—Negligence.—The burden is on the plaintiff in such a case to show affirmatively the negligence of his employer, and the mere fact of the accident or injury does not' raise the presumption of such negligence; nor can negligence be predicated against the employer of the injured party upon the fact that other independent contractors were in and about the building doing their parts of the work, while the employer was carrying to completion its own contract, the work in this regard proceeding in the usual way buildings are built.

Id.—Safe Plage to Work—Negligence of Employees of Other Contractors—Known Liability.—In such a case the place where the injured party was working (at the bottom of the passageway between the two buildings) was not an unsafe place to work; nor was it rendered unsafe because the employees of the independent contractor were painting or were about to paint signs on the wall above him, but was rendered unsafe solely by the negligence of the painters in the performance of their task, for which negligence, they being employed by another contractor, the master of the injured man cannot be held responsible.