Jones v. Mills

• Decision Date: 24 December 1878
• Citation: 126 Mass. 84
• Parties: Ellen Jones v. Granite Mills
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

126 Mass. 84

Ellen Jones v. Granite Mills

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

December 24, 1878

Argued January 3, 1877 [Syllabus Material]

Suffolk. Tort for personal injuries received by the plaintiff, while in the employ of the defendant, a manufacturing corporation from the burning of its mill.

At the trial in this court, before Lord, J., the plaintiff offered to prove that the mill was a large building, five stories in height, with an attic; that each story contained one large room; that the only way of entrance to the several stories was through a tower on the outside of the mill, with stairs leading from story to story and coming to the platform at each story, and sufficient at all ordinary times to allow the operatives a passageway in and out; that this tower went up to the edge of the roof, to the sixth story; that on each side of this tower were fire escapes coming up from the ground to the fifth story, and there stopping, leaving the sixth story without any means of escape save by going down the tower or jumping from the gable windows of the room; that the plaintiff, a woman between twenty and thirty years old had been at work at the mill about two years, in the upper room, spinning cotton; that the spinning rooms are inflammable, dangerous, and require constant care and watching to prevent fire; that about seven o'clock in the morning of September 19, 1874, a fire broke out in the forth story, caused by the heating of a bearing in one of the mules, which, when first seen, was about the size of the flame of a candle; that it was first discovered by a man not in charge of that mule, who, on seeing it, ran to the end of the room, where there was a hose coiled up and hung upon a hook, having a nozzle to it and means for stopping and starting the water; that he uncoiled the hose, and turned the valve in the pipe leading from a cistern in the top of the building, from which another pipe led to each story, and ran with the hose toward the fire; that when he got near the fire, he opened the stop-cock on the hose-pipe to let the water come out, but none came; that he then dropped it and ran to the sink at the end of the room, and got a vessel of water and ran and threw it on the fire, but that did no good the fire having got too much headway by that time; that no alarm up to that time had been made; but the alarm became general in that room, and the occupants all ran down out of the building; that in the fifth story the work was still going on, and the alarm was first given there by the fire drawing up the tower and the smoke coming into that room; that when the smoke rushed up into the sixth story the fire had so far progressed that escape by the tower was deemed impossible; that some tried it, but died, and some escaped by jumping; that the plaintiff, after trying the tower, ran back to the end of the room, and taking hold of a warp of yarn let herself down as far as she could, and then dropped the rest of the way, causing the injuries in question; that about twenty persons were either burnt or killed in jumping, and a great many wounded; that the hose and the apparatus for water were apparently, and to all outward appearances, in good order, and they had been, not frequently, but occasionally during the summer, tried to see if they were in order.

The plaintiff contended that it was the duty of the defendant to keep the apparatus for extinguishing fires in good order, to make safe and convenient ways of egress in case of fire in such a building, and to provide buckets with water in the rooms.

The judge thereupon reserved the case for the consideration of the full court. If a verdict for the plaintiff could be sustained on this offer of proof, with such inferences as the jury could legally draw, the case was to stand for trial; otherwise, the plaintiff to become nonsuit.

The case was argued in January 1877, and reargued in January 1878.

Plaintiff nonsuit.

B. F. Butler, (E. L. Barney with him,) for the plaintiff. An employer is under an implied contract or warranty to his employees to use due care to adopt and maintain in fit condition suitable instruments, means, and appliances with which the services required are to be performed, and a suitable place in which such services can be performed in safety, the employee, on his part, exercising due care. Cayzer v. Taylor, 10 Gray 274. Snow v. Housatonic Railroad, 8 Allen 441. Gilman v. Eastern Railroad, 10 Allen 233, and 13 Allen 433. Coombs v. New Bedford Cordage Co. 102 Mass. 572. Huddleston v. Lowell Machine Shop, 106 Mass. 282. Ford v. Fitchburg Railroad, 110 Mass. 240. Arkerson v. Dennison, 117 Mass. 407. Hill v. Winsor. 118 Mass. 251. Sullivan v. India Manuf. Co. 113 Mass. 396. O'Connor v. Adams, 120 Mass. 427. Kelly v. Norcross, 121 Mass. 508.

In the present case, can the court say, as matter of law, that the defendant has used "all reasonable precautions for the safety" of the plaintiff, when, the first time an emergency requires the use of the appliances for extinguishing fire, they fail? The fact that they fail is prima facie evidence that they were insufficient.

The case should have been submitted to the jury, to find whether the place where the plaintiff was put to work, with the means of escape as they existed, was a proper and safe one, such as persons in like business, of ordinary prudence and foresight, would or ought to provide for their servants to work in.

By her implied contract, the plaintiff undertook to attend to a machine; while the defendant undertook to provide a safe building and safe appliances. Her attention, time and skill were to be applied to her duty in no greater ratio than the defendant's attention, time and skill were to be applied to its duty.

It was for the jury to say, whether it was or not the defendant's duty to see that buckets were placed in the room and kept full of water; that the hose and water-pipes apparently ready for use, had water in them, and would answer when they were called upon, and whose fault it was that they were not in proper order, and that there was no water in them. It was sufficient for the plaintiff to show that they were not in order. It was for the...