Nickel v. Columbia Paper Stock Company

Decision Date02 June 1902
Citation68 S.W. 955,95 Mo.App. 226
PartiesANNA NICKEL, Respondent, v. COLUMBIA PAPER STOCK COMPANY, Appellant
CourtKansas Court of Appeals

Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court.--Hon. E. P. Gates, Judge.

AFFIRMED.

Judgment affirmed.

Harkless O'Grady & Crysler for defendant.

(1) Under the evidence, the plaintiff was not entitled to recover and the cause should be reversed. Wray v. Electric Light Co., 68 Mo.App. 380; Lawless v. Laclede, 72 Mo.App. 679; Deisenwieter v. Malting Co., 72 N.W 735; Corcoran v. Wanamaker. 39 A. 1108; O'Keefe v. National Box Co., 33 A. 587. (2) The first instruction given for the plaintiff and modified by the court, concludes by telling the jury to find for the plaintiff upon the facts alone stated in that one instruction, and wholly ignores the defense of assumption of risk and contributory negligence, and for that reason is bad and the other instructions in the case do not cure this positive error. Carder v. Primm, 60 Mo.App. 423; Linn v. Massillon, 78 Mo.App. 111; Orscheln v. Scott, 79 Mo.App. 534; Desnoyer v. Lisman, 85 Mo.App. 340. (3) Instruction number one is also erroneous for the reason that it assumes the existence of disputed facts. Linn v. Massillon, 78 Mo.App. 111; Carder v. Primm, 60 Mo.App. 423. (4) Instruction number ten, offered by defendant, should have been given, which declared in effect that if the defendant did not know of anything improper in the material in the sacks and the plaintiff knew that the defendant did not know it, then she could not recover. Bailey Master and Servant, p. 180, ch. 9; Epperson v. Postal Tel. Co., 155 Mo. 375.

Elliott & Burnham for respondent.

(1) Even though the injury complained of was unusual and could not ordinarily have been foreseen, yet it is clearly shown that the injurious consequences to the plaintiff flow directly and immediately from the negligent act of the defendant, in permitting the poisonous material to be given plaintiff to be sorted, when defendant could, by the most ordinary care of inspection of the bale, or of the source from whence it came, have prevented such material from being given plaintiff to work upon, hence, appellant can not be excused. Hoepper v. Southern Hotel Co., 142 Mo. 389; Grany v. Railroad, 140 Mo. 98; 16 Am. and Eng. Enc. of Law, 432, and many cases there cited. (2) While the rule requiring the master to provide a reasonably safe place for the servant in prosecuting the work in the line of the servant's employment, is not always applicable where the work and the place of work are coincident, or where the work involves the place of working, as in the case at bar, yet such rule does apply as to latent dangers. This injury to respondent by the latent danger of the poison in the material which appellant could have avoided by ordinary care and foresight, surely comes within this rule. Curley v. Hoff, 62 N. J. L. 758; Dyer v. Brown, 64 App.Div. Sp. Ct. N. Y. 89; Kiras v. Nichols Chemical Co., 59 App.Div. Sp. 79; Dunn v. Connell (N. Y.), 21 Misc. 295; 2 Bailey's Per. Inj. Rel. to Master and Servant, secs. 511, 757, 758, 2628; Nevin v. Sears, 155 Mass. 303; Wood's Master and Servant (2 Ed.), p. 675; Whittaker's Smith on Negligence, p. 130; I Shearman & Redfield on Negligence, (4 Ed.), sec. 194. (3) There should be kept in view the fact that though the work in this case involved the place of working, yet the peril encountered by respondent grew out of an extrinsic cause, and did not arise from the work itself, or from any negligence of respondent in doing the work. The house-building illustration in Armour v. Hahn, 111 U.S. 318, cited on page 302, Bradley v. Railway, 138 Mo., makes this distinction clear. (4) It is not the duty of servant to look out for latent defects, whereas, it is the duty of the master to see that his appliances are kept in good order and condition. Nichols v. Crystal Glass Co., 126 Mo. 55; Epperson v. Postal T. & C. Co., 155 Mo. 385. (5) Servant has the right to assume that the material furnished by the master to work upon is safe. 14 Am. and Eng. Enc. of Law, 855; Speed v. Railroad, 71 Mo. 303; Keegan v. Kavanaugh, 62 Mo. 232; Res ipsa dixit--Fuchs v. St. Louis, 133 Mo. 180, and citations

T. B. Buckner and Bremmerman & Wherry for respondent.

Filed argument.

OPINION

ELLISON, J.

--This action is for personal injury alleged to have resulted to plaintiff from the negligence of defendant. The judgment in the trial court was for plaintiff.

The defendant was engaged in the business of manufacturing paper. In prosecuting its business it had a branch house in Kansas City, Missouri, where it bought, collected, cleaned, baled and shipped old waste paper and rags to be manufactured into new paper. The general mode of carrying on the business in Kansas City was, that defendant furnished sacks to various business institutions in Kansas City where large quantities of waste paper accumulated. These were gathered at intervals by defendant's wagons. Various persons in the city would likewise bring sacks or bundles of paper and rags to defendant's place of business and sell them to defendant. The paper was received by defendant on the ground floor of its building and then carried to an upper floor where it was sorted and thrown into different receptacles provided. The sorting consisted, principally, in separating the kinds of paper thus brought in, fit for the manufacture of different kinds of new paper and of separating such material as might not be fit for manufacture at all.

Plaintiff was engaged on the upper floor with several other women in doing this work. While so engaged there was brought to her from the lower floor, by the men in defendant's employ for that purpose, and dumped upon the table where plaintiff worked, a sack of old paper which had been gathered from some hospital. It contained pieces of cotton saturated with blood and with urine and various medicines. There were also pieces of decaying human flesh emitting an unbearable odor. These substances so poisoned plaintiff that she became violently sick and suffered the injury for which she instituted this action. The defendant's theory is that conceding the foregoing, which (omitting unnecessary detail), are the facts as the evidence in plaintiff's behalf tended to show them, she has no case. That plaintiff's business, in which she voluntarily engaged, was to meet with such dangerous conditions as just described. That her employment was to inspect the paper and that no right of action could accrue to her for an injury resulting from the ordinary prosecution of the thing she was hired to do. That she assumed the risk of such injurious consequences as happened to her.

The plaintiff's theory is that defendant was guilty of negligence, either in gathering such poisonous material, or, in not having it inspected before carrying it to plaintiff's table for sorting. That consequently she did not assume the risk of the act described.

The plaintiff did undoubtedly assume the ordinary risk of injury which would naturally or reasonably follow the character of employment in which she was engaged. Her work was not a cleanly work, nor was it free from the general risk of disease; a risk which the defendant, as her employer, could not reasonably wholly provide against. For, with diligent circumspection on the part of defendant, there would still be risk of disease in such work. But these facts do not exculpate defendant from an affirmative act in putting upon plaintiff's work table a bundle of poisonous waste matter gathered from a place where such waste matter might reasonably be expected to be found. If defendant had gathered waste material from a smallpox pesthouse and placed on plaintiff's table, whereby she became diseased, could it be said that she assumed the risk of such conduct? The extraordinary character of the occurrence is enough to demonstrate that plaintiff should not be held to have assumed the risk of its happening. Schroeder v. Railway, 108 Mo. 322, 329; Henry v. Railway, 109 Mo. 488.

We can not see how defendant can construct any reasonable theory of escape from the wrong done the plaintiff. If the foul and poisonous material was collected by agents for whose...

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