INJURIES TO EMPLOYEES 181 



a servant who had directed the attention of his foreman 

 to the improper condition of a saw and had been assured 

 that it would be fixed and told to go on with his work, did 

 not assume the risk of the dangerous employment by con- 

 tinuing work a reasonable time after the promise. 1 Had 

 he continued work without the receipt of a promise that 

 the condition would be remedied, or for so long a time after 

 the promise that he should have had reasonable ground to 

 believe that the master did not intend to keep the promise, 

 he would have been held to have assumed the risk. 



Although the employment of a minor in a dangerous 

 work without the consent of his parent is not negligence 

 per se, 2 greater care must be exercised by the master as 

 to minors than as to adult employees and he may be liable 

 for injuries to a minor irrespective of negligence on the 

 part of the minor. 3 The (same rule should be applied in 

 the case of a sub-normal adult. However, a minor must 

 exercise the degree of care and discretion that may rea- 

 sonably be expected in one of his age and experience. An 

 intelligent boy of seventeen years who, after working two 

 years at a lath machine, was injured while attempting to 

 clean out clogged material from the machine without stop- 

 ping it, was held to have assumed the risk, 4 and the em- 

 ployer was absolved from liability for the injury of a boy 

 over fifteen years of age who, subsequent to being warned 

 as to a danger which he understood, stumbled on a rise 

 in the floor of a mill and wa;s injured by a saw. 5 



The law of the place in which the injury occurs is ordin- 

 arily applicable to personal injury cases. 6 



Within the last two decades, and especially within very 

 recent years, there has developed an entirely new social 

 attitude regarding injuries to employees. The new trend 

 of public opinion has occasioned an agitation for legislative 

 action that has resulted in the enactment of many laws for 

 the relief of employees. These laws, known in some states 



1. Bell & Coggeshall v. Applegate, (Ky.) 62 S. W. 1124. 



2. Pennsylvania Co. v. Long, 94 Ind. 250. 



3. Marbury Lbr. Co. v. Westbrook, 121 Ala. 179, 25 So. 914. 



4. Larson v. Knapp, Stout & Co. (Wis.) 73 N. W. 992. 



5. Journeaux v. Stafford Co. (Mich.) 81 N. W. 259. 



6. Rich v. Saginaw Bay Towing Co. 132 Mich. 237, 93 N. W. 632, 102 Am. St. Rep. 



422. 



