Schroeder v. Michigan Car Co.

• Decision Date: 28 January 1885
• Citation: 56 Mich. 132,22 N.W. 220
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: SCHROEDER v. MICHIGAN CAR CO.

22 N.W. 220

56 Mich. 132

SCHROEDER v. MICHIGAN CAR CO.

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 28, 1885

Error to the superior court of Detroit.

Wm. H Wells, for plaintiff.

Griffin & Warner, for defendant.

COOLEY C.J.

The plaintiff sues to recover damages for an accidental injury to one of his hands while in the service of defendant, operating a planing-machine. The injury was caused by the sleeve of his overshirt being caught in the cogs pertaining to the feed-rollers of the machine as he was reaching over the cogs to loosen a screw, thereby to increase the space for the passage of the board which was to be planed. The complaint made of the defendant is that it permitted the cap or shield covering the cog-wheels to be left off, thereby exposing persons to the risks of such accidents as occurred in this case. The evidence showed that no cap or shield of the kind supposed had ever been over the cog-wheels, and it was not therefore, a case of negligently leaving in an unsafe condition a machine that, as made, was safe. It also appeared that the machine had been in sue in defendant's shops 12 years or more; that it was a machine manufactured by a well-known house, and largely sold and used throughout the country; and that the plaintiff had known the machine, and worked within a few feet of it for upwards of two years. It also appeared that he had worked among similar machinery for some 25 years. His special business had been to run a machine which is called in the evidence a "sticker" and which is used for cutting mouldings and he was running for the second day the machine by which he was injured. He knew, and had known for two years or more, that the cog-wheels had no shield over them, and he must therefore have known that if his garments were suffered to get between those wheels when in motion he was liable to such an injury as actually happened.

From this statement of facts it will appear that if the defendant has been guilty of any negligence contributing to the injury it is to be found in the fact that a machine is made use of which is not so constructed as to guard as well as it might against similar accidents. Had the machine been constructed with a shield over the cog-wheels, this particular accident would probably not have occurred; and any one, whose attention was drawn to the danger of such accidents, would probably have perceived the desirability of such a shield. But the machine is shown by the evidence to be manufactured and sold by a prominent and reputable house, and much used throughout the country, and the defendant cannot therefore be said to be exceptionally wanting in prudence in purchasing and making use of it. Such danger as would result from making use of it was perfectly apparent, and would seem to be easily avoided, and it was probably not greater than other dangers attendant upon the use of common machinery, which workmen encounter every day without hesitation and without fear. A farm-hand who undertakes the management of a nervous horse, or who handles a reaper or mower, is probably exposed many times to risks quite as great as those to which this plaintiff was subjected; and when an injury has happened it may be easy to point out, as it is now in this case, how some...