Mann v. Phoenix Brick & Construction Co.
| Decision Date | 07 November 1910 |
| Citation | 132 S.W. 19,151 Mo.App. 586 |
| Parties | WILLIAM MANN, Respondent, v. PHOENIX BRICK & CONSTRUCTION CO., Appellant |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Buchanan Circuit Court.--Hon. L. J. Eastin, Judge.
Judgment reversed.
Rusk & Stringfellow for appellant.
Frank H. Miller and Chas. C. Crow for respondent.
This is an action by a servant against his master to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the latter. A trial resulted in a verdict for plaintiff in the sum of $ 5750. Plaintiff remitted $ 1275 and judgment was entered in his favor for $ 4475.
The injury occurred April 14, 1908. Defendant was a manufacturer of paving brick in St. Joseph and obtained its material from a shale bank near its brick yard. This bank was about eighty feet high and faced west. At the top was a bed of clay eighteen or twenty feet thick; then followed a stratum of rock ten or eleven feet thick, then a bed of shale extending to the bottom of the bank. Plaintiff, a blaster of twenty-three years experience was in charge of the work of blasting the shale used in the brick yard. He had worked on that bank for six years and was his own master. Defendant required him to keep the plant supplied with shale and allowed him to perform that duty in his own way. He was an expert and knew as much as his employer of the nature of the work and of the best methods to be pursued. He began that season's work in February. First, he stripped back the clay and rock in order to expose a ledge of shale, then in March he began blasting shale. He drilled three holes ten feet deep in the shale ledge, charged them with powder and exploded the shots. The effect was to break off the top of the ledge to the depth of ten feet and of a length of about 125 feet north and south. Later he drilled three holes in the new ledge thus formed and blasted off another section of ten feet. This formed a third ledge approximately fifty feet from the top of the bank and thirty feet from the bottom. Into this ledge he drilled three holes, charged them with powder and exploded the charges. One of the results of this explosion was the injuries of which plaintiff complains. After drilling the holes, plaintiff put in each one a small stick of dynamite and exploded these charges for the purpose of forming a chamber at the bottom of each hole for the reception of the blasting powder. Then he put in the powder, using six kegs for three holes. The explosions of these charges were made at the same instant by means of an electrical apparatus. A device to produce an electric spark was inserted in each charge. A wire ran from the device to the top of the ground. These wires were connected together and to a lead wire at the other end of which was attached a small box called the exploder. When ready to fire, plaintiff carried this exploder as far as the length of the lead wire would permit and to what he deemed the safest place and exploded the charges by throwing a switch in the exploder and thereby sending a current of electricity to the spark devices. In selecting his position plaintiff went north along a sort of pathway afforded by the remnant of the first ledge of shale. This way was about twenty feet above the ledge where the shots were placed and plaintiff stopped at a point about eighty feet north of the shots. He stated that he stopped there because that was as far as the lead wire would permit him to go. The face of the wall was very steep but not quite perpendicular. Plaintiff stood on a narrow ledge and there was a slight slope backward of the wall above him which consisted of clay. The concussion produced by the explosion caused a quantity of the clay to be detached from the bank and to fall on plaintiff, knocking him from his place and causing him to roll to the bottom of the bank.
When plaintiff commenced work that season he found that his lead wire was only seventy-five feet long, and, believing that it was too short for safe blasting, he informed defendant of the situation and asked for more wire.
The petition states as the basis of plaintiff's cause of action that he was furnished one hundred feet of wire, and that length he knew, as an experienced blaster, was too short for safety, and that he requested defendant to supply more wire and that the latter promised to do so but did not. That notwithstanding plaintiff knew the hundred feet was too short for safety, he, upon...
To continue reading
Request your trial