## Facts

- A coal company employed a boy about fourteen years old to work in its coal mine.
- Other employees drew coal from a chute located above or outside the area where the boy worked underground.
- The employees released a large mass of coal from the chute without warning workers known to be below.
- The falling coal buried and killed the boy.
- Trial evidence indicated it was usual in the mine to draw coal from the chute without giving warning.
- The boy had not been shown to have been adequately warned or instructed about the hazard involved in opening the chute without notice.

## Issues

1. Whether proof that it was customary to draw coal from a chute without warning conclusively established due care and defeated negligence.
2. Whether the boy’s knowledge of the conditions or his conduct barred recovery by contributory negligence or assumption of risk, given his age.
3. Whether the evidence and jury instructions on custom, negligence, and a minor’s standard of care justified submission to the jury and supported the verdict.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the judgment for the parents.
- The court held that evidence of custom was relevant but not controlling on the question of due care; a customary practice can still be negligent.
- The court held that negligence and contributory negligence were properly questions for the jury on this record.
- The court applied a minor-specific standard for contributory negligence and declined to treat the boy’s conduct as negligent as a matter of law.

## Legal Principles

- Industry or workplace custom is admissible evidence on negligence but does not set the legal standard of care; reasonable prudence controls even if a dangerous practice is common.
- A defendant cannot avoid liability solely by proving its conduct conformed to customary practice when the practice creates foreseeable, serious risk.
- Contributory negligence of a minor is measured by the care reasonably expected of a child of similar age, intelligence, and experience, not by an adult standard.
- When evidence permits differing conclusions about negligence or a minor’s contributory negligence, those questions are for the jury.

## Conclusion

The court sustained a wrongful-death verdict for a fourteen-year-old miner killed by coal released without warning, ruling that customary practice did not conclusively show due care and that both negligence and the child’s contributory negligence were properly left to the jury under a child-appropriate standard.


Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Co. v. Hayes, 18 A. 387 (Pa. 1889)