Blanton v. Dold

• Citation: 18 S.W. 1149,109 Mo. 64
• Parties: BLANTON v. DOLD et al.
• Decision Date: 14 March 1892
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

18 S.W. 1149

109 Mo. 64

BLANTON v. DOLD et al.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

March 14, 1892.

INJURY TO EMPLOYE — DEFECTIVE MACHINERY — CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE — APPEAL.

1. Plaintiff, in charge of defendant's "blood-mill," while reaching into the mill to extract a nail, was injured by the machinery suddenly starting. It was started and stopped by pulling ropes that changed the belt to a live or dead wheel on the shaft under the ceiling of the room overhead and out of sight of plaintiff. The mill had started several times before without any movement of the ropes, but this was unknown to plaintiff. When plaintiff reached into the mill it was at rest, and the ropes in proper position, as he had been instructed to place them by the master mechanic. Held that, while plaintiff failed to specifically assign a cause for the sudden movement of the machinery, yet, such movement being entirely out of the usual manner of its operation, it afforded prima facie evidence of some want of care in its construction or condition.

2. The likelihood of the sudden starting of the machinery was not one of the ordinary risks of employment voluntarily assumed by plaintiff.

3. The question of plaintiff's exercise of common prudence in the circumstances, he having been instructed by the master mechanic that when the ropes were in a certain position the mill would stop, was for the jury to determine.

4. Defendants having made no complaint of excessive damages in their motion for a new trial, the question cannot be examined in the supreme court.

Appeal from circuit court, Jackson county; J. H. SLOVER, Judge.

Action by Blanton against Dold and others. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Chase & Powell, for appellants. John W. Beebe, for respondent.

BARCLAY, J.

Plaintiff recovered a judgment for personal injuries which defendants have brought here for review. It is unnecessary to quote the pleadings. The general nature of plaintiff's case is that his mishap resulted from want of reasonable care as to the safety of machinery furnished by defendants, in whose service he was engaged. On the other side, defendants denied all negligence on their part, and asserted contributory negligence of the plaintiff. The cause was tried with the aid of a jury, and a verdict for plaintiff for $5,000 resulted.

1. Plaintiff's injuries were serious, but they need not be particularized. As defendants made no complaint of excessive damages in their motion for new trial, that question cannot be considered open for examination now. Ridenhour v. Railway Co., (1890,) 102 Mo. 270, 14 S. W. Rep. 760.

2. The first debatable point for attention arises on the objection to the plaintiff's whole case. Defendants insist that the court should have given the instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence, as requested. As the jury ultimately found for plaintiff, our duty now, in considering this branch of the appeal, merely extends to ascertaining whether the verdict has substantial support in the testimony. It is not our province to pass on the weight of conflicting evidence in an action of this character; indeed, we have no constitutional power to do so. At the time of the accident defendants were operating a large packing establishment at Kansas City, Mo. In one of its departments some of the refuse from other parts of the establishment was manufactured into fertilizing material. Among the machinery applied to this purpose was a contrivance for grinding cakes or masses of dried blood, called by the witnesses a "blood-mill." This instrument is the object of complaint and investigation here, as it was in the circuit court. We shall not attempt to picture fully the details of this machine and of its operation. In the view we take of the case it will not be necessary. We will merely state its general features that bear on the merits of the controversy. The mill occupied a fixed position on the floor of a large room. Its base was a wooden frame, some 3 feet high, 15 inches wide, and about 3 feet long. Above this was an iron cylinder, arranged to revolve rapidly, filled with rows of teeth. Near that was a fixed iron plate, likewise filled with teeth, so placed as that those of the cylinder, when in motion, would run between them, and thus form an effective cutting or grinding machine. The shaft of the cylinder was prolonged beyond the frame-work, and carried a wheel, on which belting ran, communicating with motive power as explained further on. Over the cutting machinery of the mill was a large hopper, extending nearly to the ceiling of the room, and closed on all sides save one, left open for the admission of the material to be treated. The latter, after passing through the teeth, ran out upon a board, placed at an angle on the inside of the frame, from a point just below the fixed plate to the floor. Immediately above the room where this mill stood was one called the "lard-room." Near the ceiling of the latter the machinery was placed which directly connected the shaft and belting that moved the blood-mill with the general supply of steam-power for the whole establishment. This connection was effected by means of a lever, a movement of which placed certain belting on a fixed or on a loose wheel, according as the operator desired. When this belting was shifted to the fixed wheel, the mill in the room below was put into motion. When the belting was shifted from the fixed to the loose wheel, direct communication with the steam-power was cut off, and the mill stopped as soon as the momentum of its own particular gearing was exhausted, which required (according to plaintiff's witnesses) about one minute when the mill was empty; less time if there was material in it. This lever was moved (as occasion might require in the use of the blood-mill) by means of two ropes fastened to it and running (through holes in the intervening floor) into the mill-room. By pulling one of the ropes the lever would respond so as to throw the main belting upon the fixed pulley or wheel, and start the mill; and by pulling the other rope the lever could be shifted back again, so as to carry the belting upon the live or loose wheel, and stop the mill. The ropes hung about four feet apart in the mill-room, the free end of the lower one about three feet from the floor. They passed vertically through the lard-room from its floor to the lever overhead. An iron ball of some 35 or 40 pounds' weight was provided, to be tied to either rope in the mill-room, and by that pressure to keep the lever in the position desired. The lever and the shafting in the lard-room were not visible from the mill-room because of the intervening floor of the former.

The plaintiff had been in defendants' employ for some time before the blood-mill was built. He had charge of the fertilizing department, including the room where this mill was. He was not a skilled mechanic, but had often seen machinery in establishments where he had worked. He had several men under his direction in his department. At the time of the accident, one was Olsen, a Swede, who stopped the mill by order of plaintiff, who had heard a noise within it as of some obstruction. Pieces of iron and of bone occasionally got into the mill with the material to be ground. This necessitated stopping it, and removing the obstruction. On this occasion plaintiff looked into the mill from the top of the hopper after the charge or load was out, and it had stopped. He saw that some teeth were bent, but could not discern the cause. He then looked into the mill from below, and discovered a nail that had become imbedded in the frame-work in a way to interfere with the grinding machinery. While the latter was at rest, he put his hand between the teeth to extract the nail, when the machinery started up, suddenly, caught his hand, and inflicted injuries which made its amputation necessary. The unexpected start of the mill is not ascribable to any movement of the rope in the mill-room. The evidence is that, after the mill had been stopped, no one disturbed the ropes there until after plaintiff's mishap. Considerable expert evidence was given that, owing to the location of the fixed and loose pulleys relative to the main belting in the lard-room, that belting (connecting with the steam-power) was liable to shift, temporarily, under certain conditions, from the loose to the dead pulley, sufficiently to impart motion, without any movement of the lever designed to control such changes. There was evidence that the mill had started on two or three former occasions without any appropriate movement of the ropes in the mill-room, although plaintiff did not learn that, until after the accident. In the lard-room...