Buch v. Amory Manufacturing Co. case brief

Buch v. Amory Manufacturing Co. case brief summary
44 A. 809 (N.H. 1897)

CASE SYNOPSIS

Defendant factory owners sought review of a decision from a trial court (New Hampshire), which entered a verdict for plaintiff injury victim in his action for damages for personal injuries incurred when his hand was caught in a set of gears at the factory owners' plant.

CASE FACTS
The injury victim, an eight-year-old boy, was in the plant without the factory owners' knowledge or permission. The injured victim contended on appeal that the factory owners should have forcibly ejected him. The factory owners argued that the injury victim was a trespasser, to whom they owed no duty.

DISCUSSION

• The court set aside the verdict and entered judgment for the factory owners. 
• The court found that a license for the injury victim's presence could not legitimately be inferred, and determined that the injury victim was a trespasser. 
• The court noted that while the duty to do no wrong was a legal duty, the duty to protect against wrong was, generally speaking and excepting certain intimate relations in the nature of a trust, a moral obligation not recognized or enforced by law. 
• The court stated that the law no more compelled the owners to shut down their gates and stop their business for the protection of a trespasser than it required them to maintain a railing about an open scuttle or to fence in their machinery for the same purpose. 
• The court determined that there was no evidence tending to show that the factory owners neglected to perform any legal duty to the injury victim.

CONCLUSION

The court set aside the verdict for the injury victim in his action for personal injuries received in the factory owners' plant, and entered judgment for the factory owners.

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