of a train, car, engine, or switch, or in any service
requiring his presence upon a train, car or engine,
and every such employee shall have the same right
to recovery for every injury suffered by him from
the acts or omissions of any other employee or employees
of the common master, that a servant would have (at
the time when this Constitution goes into effect),
if such acts or omissions were those of the master
himself in the performance of a non-assignable duty
provided, that the injury, so suffered by such railroad
employee, result from the negligence of an officer,
or agent, of the company of a higher grade of service
than himself, or from that of a person, employed by
the company, having the right, or charged with the
duty, to control or direct the general services or
the immediate work of the party injured, or the general
services or the immediate work of the co employee through,
or by whose act or omission he is injured, or that
it result from the negligence of a co employee engaged
in another department of labor, or engaged upon, or
in charge of, any car upon which, or upon the train
of which it is a part, the injured employee is not
at the time of receiving the injury, or who is in charge
of any switch, signal point, or locomotive engine,
or is charged with dispatching trains or transmitting
telegraphic or telephonic orders therefore, and whether
such negligence be in the performance of an assignable
or non assignable duty. The physical construction,
repair or maintenance of the roadway, track or any
of the structures connected therewith, and the physical
construction, repair, maintenance, cleaning or operation
of trains, cars or engines, shall be regarded as different
departments of labor within the meaning of this section.
Knowledge, by any such railroad employee injured, of
the defective or unsafe character or condition of
any machinery, ways, appliances or structures, shall
be no defence to an action for injury caused thereby.
When death, whether instantaneous or not, results
to such an employee from any injury for which he could
have recovered, under the above provisions, had death
not occurred, then his legal or personal representative,
surviving consort, and relatives (and any trustee,
curator committee or guardian of such consort or relatives)
shall, respectively, have the same rights and remedies
with respect thereto as if his death had been caused
by the negligence of a co employee while in the performance,
as vice-principal, of a non assignable duty of the
master. Every contract or agreement, express or
implied, made by an employee, to waive the benefit
of this section, shall be null and void This section
shall not be construed to deprive any employee, or
his legal or personal representative, surviving consort
or relatives (or any trustee, curator, committee or
guardian of such consort or relatives), of an\ rights
or remedies that he or they may have by the law of
the land, at the time this Constitution goes into
effect Nothing contained in this section shall restrict
the power of the General Assembly to further enlarge,
for the above named class of employees, the rights
and remedies hereinbefore provided for, or to extend
such rights and remedies to, or otherwise enlarge
the present rights and remedies of, any other class
of employees of railroads or of employees of any person,
firm or corporation