## Facts

- Lamson worked for many years as a hatchet painter in the defendant’s factory.
- Painted hatchets were placed on racks above Lamson’s workstation to dry.
- About a year before the accident, the employer replaced the original racks with a new rack design.
- The new racks were affected by vibration from nearby machinery, making hatchets more likely to fall from their pegs.
- Lamson complained to the employer’s superintendent that the new racks were unstable and that he feared injury from falling hatchets.
- The superintendent told Lamson to continue working with the new racks or leave the job.
- Lamson stayed and continued working under the same conditions.
- A hatchet later fell from the rack and struck Lamson, causing injury.
- Lamson sued the employer for negligence under the employers’ liability act.
- The trial judge directed a verdict for the employer; Lamson took exceptions to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

## Issues

1. Whether an employee who fully understands an obvious workplace danger, complains, and then continues working after being told to accept the condition or quit, is barred from recovery by assumption of risk as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court overruled Lamson’s exceptions and upheld judgment for the employer.
- The directed verdict was proper because Lamson assumed the risk of the known danger by continuing to work.
- The injury resulted from the precise hazard Lamson identified and appreciated before the accident.
- The fact that Lamson faced economic pressure to keep his job did not prevent the law from treating his continued work as voluntary acceptance of the risk.

## Legal Principles

- An employee who knowingly and voluntarily continues to work in the face of a clear and obvious danger assumes the risk of injury from that danger.
- Assumption of risk operates as a complete bar to recovery when the injury flows from the very condition the employee understood and elected to face.
- Fear of losing employment does not, by itself, negate voluntariness for assumption-of-risk purposes when the employee continues working with full appreciation of the hazard.

## Conclusion

Because Lamson understood and specifically warned of the falling-hatchet danger yet continued working after being told to accept the condition or quit, he assumed the risk as a matter of law, and the employer was not liable for the resulting injury.


Lamson v. Am. Axe & Tool Co., 177 Mass. 144, 58 N.E. 585 (1900)