§ 2. Employers' liability for injuries. When personal injury is caused
to an employee who is himself in the exercise of due care and diligence
at the time:

1. By reason of any defect in the condition of the ways, works,
machinery, or plant, connected with or used in the business of the
employer which arose from or had not been discovered or remedied owing
to the negligence of the employer or of any person in the service of the
employer and intrusted by him with the duty of seeing that the ways,
works, machinery, or plant, were in proper condition;

2. By reason of the negligence of any person in the service of the
employer intrusted with any superintendence or by reason of the
negligence of any person intrusted with authority to direct, control or
command any employee in the performance of the duty of such employee,
the employee, or in case the injury results in death, the executor or
administrator of a deceased employee who has left him surviving a
husband, wife or next of kin, shall have the same right of compensation
and remedies against the employer as if the employee had not been an
employee of nor in the service of the employer nor engaged in his work.
The provisions of law relating to actions for causing death by
negligence, so far as the same are consistent with this act, shall apply
to an action brought by an executor or administrator of a deceased
employee, suing under the provisions of this article. If an employer
enters into a contract, written or verbal, with an independent
contractor to do part of such employer's work, or if such contractor
enters into a contract with a subcontractor to do all or any part of the
work comprised in such contractor's contract with the employer, such
contract or subcontract shall not bar the liability of the employer for
the injuries to the employees of such contractor or subcontractor,
caused by any defect in the condition of the ways, works, machinery, or
plant, if they are the property of the employer or are furnished by him,
and if such defect arose, or had not been discovered or remedied,
through the negligence of the employer, or of some person intrusted by
him with the duty of seeing that they were in proper condition.