Page:Employers' liability.djvu/10

6 servants' negligence, and that to except fellow servants from this rule is unjust and unreasonable.

Now this is an entire mistake; and it is really wonderful how not only those who are not lawyers, but lawyers who ought to know better, are under the impression I have mentioned. It becomes necessary to begin at the beginning, and state some entirely elementary rules of law.

The primary rule is, that a man is liable for his own acts, and not for those of others. A man, as a rule, is no more liable for the wrongs done by another than he is for his debts. The cases in which he is liable are exceptions to the rule, and not the rule. I will proceed to state the exceptions.

1st. When a man undertakes to do or perform any work, he undertakes that it shall be done or performed with reasonable care and skill. If he does or performs it himself and is negligent or unskilful and damage results, he is liable. So he is if he does or performs it not himself, but by agent or deputy. For instance, if a smith's servant in shoeing a horse hurts it by negligence, the master is liable; so would he be if he got a neighbouring smith to shoe the horse and he injured the horse by his negligence. So a railway company that undertakes to carry a passenger from A to B, is liable for damage occasioned to the passenger by the negligence of its servants; so also is it liable if the damage was occasioned beyond its own line by the negligence of the servants