Whenever any person engaged in lumbering or building or in the manufacture of lumber, shall defer the payment of all or any part of the wages due employes, after the same become due, such employer shall on demand, give his employes written evidence of indebtedness for the amount so due them, which shall be payable at the date agreed upon and be negotiable...."

Discharge and quitting of servant.-Whenever a servant misconducts himself in such a manner as to interfere with the duty he has undertaken, the master is justified in discharging him. It is a servant's duty to obey whatever reasonable and lawful directions the master may give him in the course of the employment, and if he fails to follow them, he may be discharged. Any disrespectful or insolent conduct on the part of a servant towards the master or others in his employe, or inattention to duty, will justify his discharge. Any misconduct of the servant generally, which makes it impossible for him to properly fulfil his duties will justify his dismissal.

A request on the part of a master that a servant perform unreasonable work will not justify the servant in quitting, as he may refuse to do the work, nor will his refusal to do the work justify his discharge. If the servant engages in any business so as to complete with the master, or the tendency of which is injurious to the master's, he may be discharged. A servant by accepting a contract of employment impliedly contracts that he has the skill requisite to perform the duties he has undertaken, and that he will use reasonable care in exercising such skill, and if he fails in either, he may be discharged. "It is not for every breach of duty that an employer is warranted in putting an end to a contract of employment before the appointed time. In a controversy over such a matter, especially where the employment is of a business nature, requiring the exercise of judgment and discretion, the breach of duty is not per se a legal justification for a discharge of the employee, unless such breach evidences moral turpitude, or the conduct is manifestly injurious to the employer's business. So, where the question of the breach itself is undisputed, but the evidence leaves it in doubt as to whether there was any wrong intended, or any real injury inflicted, upon the employer's business, whether it constituted reasonable ground to discharge the employee is always a fact to be found by the jury."

A servant has a right to quit at any time after his con

tract has expired. For instance, if he works by the day, he may quit at the end of any day; if by the month, at the end of any month, etc. and this he may do without giving notice. If he works by the week, month, etc. and he quits without cause before such period has expired, he loses the wages earned during such period and makes himself responsible in damages for breach of contract. A master is obliged to properly treat a servant. If his treatment is such that it is not safe for the employe to remain, or his conduct is insulting or disrespectful, the servant is justified in quitting. If the servant's wages are not paid as agreed he may also quit. Whether a servant had cause for quitting is usually a question of fact to be decided by a jury.

Remedies of servant.-If a servant is wrongfully discharged before his time of employment has expired, he has a choice of several remedies. (1) He may sue for what he has already earned under his contract; (2) He may consider the contract as broken and disregard it, and may sue for the reasonable value of the services rendered, irrespective of the contract. (3) He may wait until the termination of the period of employment and recover the amount of wages due up to that time, less any amount he earned or might have earned elsewhere by the exercise of reasonable diligence. It is the duty of a servant who intends to hold his master liable for future wages when wrongfully discharged, to keep the damages down by making reasonable efforts to find employment elsewhere, and if he does not do so, such an amount will be deducted from the wages due as he might have earned if he had used reasonable diligence in obtaining other employment. Of course if he has made reasonable effort and cannot find such employment, then the master will be liable for the full amount of wages due under the contract. "In an action by an employee to recover damages for wrongful discharge, the burden of proving, in mitigation of damages, that the plaintiff could have obtained employment elsewhere, is upon the defendant."

When a servant is prevented from fulfilling his contract by reason of sickness or some occurrence over which he has no control, he may recover the reasonable value of the services rendered, less any damage the master may sustain by reason of the non-performance of the contract. If a servant is discharged for cause, he may still recover the amount of wages

due, less any damage caused by his wrongful conduct. If an event occurs which makes it impossible to proceed with the work which the servant has hired out to perform, the contract of employment is ended, and he may recover the reasonable value of his services.

Master's liability for acts of servant.-This subject is discussed quite fully in the chapter on Agency. Generally speaking, the master is liable for every act committed by a servant while the latter is acting within the scope or apparent scope of his employment, whether such act is authorized or prohibited by the master. The servant's motive in doing an act is immaterial, so long as it is done within the scope of his employment. The following cases will illustrate this rule: A son with the implied consent of his father took the latter's team and while recklessly driving along a street, injured a person. It was held that the father was responsible. A foreman, having general charge of the work on a building, stretched a guy rope across an adjacent railroad track to aid in taking down a derrick, and a switchman was caught by the rope and thrown from the top of a freight car and injured. It was decided that the employer of the foreman was responsible for the damage done, although he had instructed the foreman not to adopt the particular method in taking down the derrick. "Thus, in an English case, a servant employed by the defendants to drive their omnibus, contrary to their express directions, drew his omnibus across the road in front of a rival omnibus of the plaintiff, to obstruct the passage of the latter, and in so doing ran against and injured the plaintiff's omnibus, and it was held that the instructions given by the defendants to the driver, not to obstruct the other omnibuses, were immaterial to the question of the master's liability." "The conductor of a freight train prohibited from carrying passengers was acting within the scope of his authority in compelling a would-be passenger to leave the train, and the railway company is liable for injuries to the latter caused by his ejection while the train was in motion so that it was dangerous for him to get off." "A ticket agent left another employee in charge of the ticket office, who failed to return the proper change upon the sale of a ticket, and upon being asked therefor by the purchaser, assaulted and struck the latter. Held, that the railroad company was liable for such acts of its employee." The tenant of a house which

was being repaired by a workman in the employ of the owner requested the workman, after working hours, to repair certain steps, and the workman did so, but without instructions from his employer. Subsequently the tenant was injured by reason of the steps being defectively built. It was decided that the master was not liable, as the workman did not act within the scope of his employment in erecting them.

Personal injuries to servants.-The subject of personal injuries to servants has assumed great importance of late years, and there is probably no single subject concerning which there is as much litigation. The rules fixing the master's liability for injuries to his servants are well defined; the difficulty in determining whether liability actually exists arises in applying the rules of law to the facts of a particular case. Generall speaking, it is the master's duty to furnish a servant with a reasonably safe place to work in, to provide reasonably safe machinery and tools with which to work, and competent fellow servants. This duty rests upon the master personally and cannot be delegated by him. If he delegates it to subordinates, he is liable for their negligence in fulfilling it. It is a master's duty to keep his premises, machinery, and tools in safe condition, and if an inspection from time to time is necessary to make them so, this duty also devolves upon him. It is a master's duty to warn his servants against defects and dangers in premises, machinery and tools, which are not obvious. A master, however, is not liable absolutely for injuries caused to a servant by defective premises, etc. He is only under obligation to use reasonable care and skill in selecting these and keeping them safe, and if notwithstanding such care and skill an injury occurs, he is not liable for it. Reasonable care when spoken of in the law is such care as is exercised by a man of ordinary prudence under the same or similar circumstances. In other words, an employer is not an insurer of the safety of his premises and machinery; when he exercises reasonable care and skill in making them safe and keeping them so, he complies with all the law demands of him.

Assumption of risk.-A servant by accepting employment of a certain kind, thereby also accepts the ordinary risks of the employment. By this is meant that he must bear the consequences of any injury which he may sustain in such employment, not due to the master's negligence in the partic

ulars mentioned in the preceding paragraph. "An employee of mature age and ordinary intelligence, who knows how the work in which he is engaged is being conducted, and the position and condition of the appliances used, is bound to apprehend the dangers resulting therefrom." "...It is presumed that reasonable attention by the employee to those matters which are open, obvious, and easily comprehended by any ordinary person of mature years, will disclose to the employee all the danger of using a defective contrivance, and he is therefore conclusively presumed to have assumed such dangers as a part of his contract of employment." If the servant by reason of his particular skill or knowledge knows of any defect or danger which is not open and obvious and remains in the employment, he is also held to have assumed the risk of it. It should be noted here that also the master violates his duty in not furnishing safe machinery, etc., yet if the servant is aware of the master's default in this respect, and knows of the particular danger or defect by which he is subsequently injured, he impliedly assumes the risk of the employment. The theory of the law is that a servant who does not quit when he sees such extra danger, is guilty of contributory negligence. A minor or inexperienced person may assume the risk of employment, and as to them the rule has been laid down as follows: "If the danger to which the servant is exposed is known and comprehended by him, or is such an open and obvious danger that considering his age, intelligence, experience and judgment he ought in the exercise of reasonable and ordinary care to have known and apprehended it, then the law is that he assumes the risk of that danger; on the other hand, if the danger is not open and obvious to a person of his age, intelligence, experience and judgment, then he is not held to have assumed the risk unless he has been sufficiently informed in some way of the danger, or has had reasonable opportunity to learn it by his own experience. When a servant is a minor or inexperienced, there is no presumption that he understood the ordinary hazards of the employment, but as to adults there is such a presumption.

"The general rule is that, where unusual dangers are known to the employee and he voluntarily assumes them, if he is thereby injured he cannot recover on account of his contributory fault, even if the master, at the same time, is guilty of negligence which, without such assumption of risk,