Mahlon Pitney

“ To relieve the employer from responsibility for injuries that may befall the employee while remaining at his work in reliance upon a promise of reparation, there must be something more than knowledge by the employee that danger confronts him, or that it is constant. ”

“ While most courts agree that an employee cannot, without impairing his right to recover from the employer, remain at work in the presence of a known danger so imminent that no reasonably prudent man would confront it, even where the employer has promised reparation, they differ as to whether this is to be placed upon the ground of assumption of risk or of contributory negligence. ”

“ But the reasonable reliance of the employee upon the employer's promise to repair the defect is as good an answer to the charge of contributory negligence as to the contention that the risk was assumed. The employer's direction or request that the employee remain at work pending performance of the promise has a material bearing upon the employee's duty in the meantime, and therefore upon the question of his negligence, which involves the notion of some fault or breach of duty on his part. ”