Quality Building Services, Inc.

<p>APPEAL BY DEPENDANT FROM THE COURT OP COMMON PLEAS NO.'2 OP PHILADELPHIA COUNTY.</p> <p>No. 156 July Term 1889, Sup. Ct.; court below, No. 577 December Term 1887, C. P. No. 2.</p> <p>On January 30,1888, Peter Trainor brought trespass against the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company and George DeB. Keim and others, receivers of said company, to recover damages for injuries received from the fall of a coal derrick upon him, averring in his statement of claim that said “ derrick was so carelessly, negligently and improperly constructed as to be dangerous to employees,” and that the “defendant carelessly, negligently and improperly placed said dangerously-constructed derrick in use where said Peter Trainor, the plaintiff, was working without notice or knowledge of said dangerous construction, and said derrick by reason of the premises fell,” etc. Issue.</p> <p>At the trial on February 14, 1889, it was shown that in the fall of 1887 the defendant had in operation at its coal yards at Port Richmond a new system of storing coal. The apparatus had not been long in use by the defendant, and consisted of a heavy pole fifty or sixty feet in length, set upright in a wooden cup on the ground and held in its place by guys. At the top of the pole was fastened an endless chain with scoops or pockets, by which the coal was drawn to the top of the pole and thence dropped down, the process being continued until the pile of coal was as high as it could be made, when the guys were taken down and attached to another pole in another place. To remove the coal for loading it upon cars or vessels, it was taken away from the bottom of the pile, and, as the removal reached the pole on the slope of the pile, the pole was to be drawn tight against the coal on the other side, by ropes attached to it above the coal. The poles and other appliances were furnished by one Berger, under a contract with the defendant company made in May, 1887, by which Berger agreed to “erect and operate” the plan