Hugo Black

“ Assumption of risk is a judicially created rule which was developed in response to the general impulse of common law courts at the beginning of this period to insulate the employer as much as possible from bearing the 'human overhead' which is an inevitable part of the cost-to someone-of the doing of industrialized business. ”

“ The theory that a servant is completely barred from recovery for injury resulting from his master's negligence, which legislatures have sought to eliminate in all its various forms of contributory negligence, the fellow servant rule, and assumption of risk, must not, contrary to the will of Congress, be allowed recrudescence under any other label in the common law lexicon. ”

“ The court reasoned that if, for example, the respondent had negligently failed to provide a workman with a sound tool, and he was thereby injured, it could not under the amendment claim that he had assumed the risk of using the defective implement; but that if a workman were injured in the ordinary course of his work, as in such a switching operation as this, the assumption of risk might still be relied upon to prove that the respondent had no duty to protect him from accustomed danger. ”

“ No case is to be withheld from a jury on any theory of assumption of risk and questions of negligence should under proper charge from the court be submitted to the jury for their determination. Many years ago this Court said of the problems of negligence, 'We see no reason, so long as the jury system is the law of the land, and the jury is made the tribunal to decide disputed questions of fact, why it should not decide such questions as these as well as others.' Jones v. ”

“ The workman who depends on his employment for the bread of himself and his family is thus tempted to incur risks to which, as a matter of humanity, he ought not to be exposed. But looking at the matter in a legal point of view, if a man, for the sake of employment, takes it or continues in it with a knowledge of its risks, he must trust himself to keep clear of injury.' Woodley v. ”

“ A poor fellow working in a yard, intent upon his work, and somebody kicks a car on top of him, and the courts, notwithstanding he has no knowledge of it, if he is struck, hold that he has no right to recover. It may be that he was negligent, but again I say the comparative negligence doctrine should be applied.' Hearings, Note 12, supra, p. ”

“ Or as we have put it on another occasion, 'Where the facts are in dispute, and the evidence in relation to them is that from which fairminded men may draw different inferences', the case should go to the jury. ”

“ But the House bill, which the chief railroad counsel appearing before the Senate committee conceded would make no change in the existing law, [25] was rejected in conference. The Allen case was specifically and caustically discussed at the Senate hearings, and the Senate bill was clearly aimed at ending its rule. [26]
The doctrine of assumption of risk can not be 'abolished in toto' [27] and still remain in partial existence as the court below suggests. ”

“ The petitioner's husband and intestate, John Lewis Tiller, was a policeman for the respondent railroad. Among his duties was that of inspecting the seals on cars in railroad yards to make sure that no one had tampered with them. ”

“ Federal and state courts, with some notable exceptions, accepted and applied the rule with all of its implications and consequences except when expressly prohibited from doing so by statute. [13]
Congress took a major step toward modification of the common law barrier against employee recovery in accident suits in the Federal Employers' Liability Act of 1906, 34 Stat. ”

“ Ross, 112 U.S. 377, 386, 5 S.Ct. 184, 188, 28 L.Ed. 787.↑ 'Morally speaking, those who employ men on dangerous work without doing all in their power to obviate the danger are highly reprehensible, as I think the company were in the present instance. ”