Opinion
No. CV 03 0519016 S
August 20, 2004
RULING ON MOTION TO STRIKE
The plaintiff, a baby-sitter for the defendants, alleges that she was injured while washing a Pyrex glass dish that had been used to cook french fries and exploded when being rinsed. She has brought suit against the defendants for their failure to warn her or instruct her on the handling of the glass dish. The defendants move to strike on the ground that they owe no duty to the plaintiff.
The defendants were under a duty to furnish the plaintiff a reasonably safe place in which to work and reasonably safe utensils. General Statates § 31-49. The plaintiff's attorney at oral argument stated that the plaintiff was young; that she did not cook at the residence; and that she was inexperienced with cleaning Pyrex glassware. Such matters are not alleged in the complaint, however. As alleged, the complaint merely states that the defendant parents asked plaintiff to prepare a meal and that she washed the utensils afterwards. In general a person should not expect special instructions on cleaning a dish. In addition, the plaintiff does not allege that the washing occurred immediately after the dish was removed from the oven, but only after the children had been fed.
A motion to strike must be granted, as here, where the allegations of the complaint fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Practice Book § 10-39. Several cases support granting the motion to strike on similar allegations. See, e.g., Clark v. Brings, 169 N.W.2d 407 (Minn. 1969), holding that a babysitter could not sue the parents for injuries received on the job.
In Clark, the court contrasted the situation there where an experienced babysitter was injured by the parents' Siamese cat with the situation where an inexperienced fifteen-year-old babysitter was not warned that a horse had dangerous propensities. The court concluded that there must be an allegation "of some special circumstances which would . . . have put a prudent employer on guard for his employee's safety." Id. at 414.
In Szep v. Robinson, 121 N.W.2d 753 (Wis. 1963), a babysitter, aged 16, was injured when she was taking boiling pots off the stove using a towel. The towel caught on fire and injured the babysitter. The Supreme Court dismissed her suit finding that the parents did not have a duty to furnish her with a pot holder or explain to her the dangers of an electric stove.
The dissent is also instructive in that it emphasized that the plaintiff could have pled that, based on her age, she had no experience with the stove and the parents had no reason to think that she had. Id. at 758-59.
Finally in Balla v. Lonergan, 143 Conn. 197, 199 (1956), our Supreme Court affirmed a verdict against a babysitter who claimed she slipped on a rug in her bedroom as she arose during the night to assist a crying child. The court, quoting case law, approved the following charge to the jury: "The servant assumes the ordinary hazards incident to his employment, and also those hazards of which he has knowledge, either actual or constructive" Here the complaint does not allege anything more than "ordinary hazards" and fails to allege that the work conditions were unreasonable.
Therefore the motion to strike is therefore granted.
Henry S. Cohn, J.