David Josiah Brewer

“ A momentary act of negligence is charged against the telegraph operator. No reasonable amount of care and supervision which the master had taken beforehand would have guarded against such unexpected and temporary act of negligence. Be fore an employer should be held responsible in damages it should appear that in some way, by the exercise of reasonable care and prudence, he could have avoided the injury. He cannot be personally present everywhere and at all times, and, in the nature of things, cannot guard against every temporary act of negligence by one of his employees. ”

“ But where the employer is a railroad or other corporation having a large number of employees, sometimes engaged in different departments of service, certain limitations or qualifications of this general rule have been prescribed. Perhaps no question has been more frequently considered by the courts than that of fellow servant, and none attended with more varied suggestions and attempted qualifications. ”

“ It has been discussed so often that any extended discussion in the present case is unnecessary, and it is sufficient to state the principal suggestions, and consider their applicability to the case at bar. ”

“ They were called upon 'to perform duties tending to accomplish the same general purposes,' and 'the services of each in his particular sphere or department were directed to the accomplishment of the same general end.' The fireman who shovels coal into the fire-box of the engine is not doing precisely the same work as the engineer, neither is the conductor who signals to the engineer to start or to stop, nor the operator who delivers from the telegraph office at the station to the engineer orders to move, and who reports the coming and going of trains ”