Anderson v. Chi. Brass Co.

• Decision Date: 23 February 1906
• Citation: 106 N.W. 1077,127 Wis. 273
• Parties: ANDERSON v. CHICAGO BRASS CO.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

127 Wis. 273

106 N.W. 1077

ANDERSON

v.CHICAGO BRASS CO.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Feb. 23, 1906.

Appeal from Circuit court, Kenosha County; E. B. Belden, Judge.

Action by Joseph Anderson, an infant, by Giles Robinson, his guardian ad litem, against the Chicago Brass Company. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

This is an action to recover for personal injuries suffered by the plaintiff, an employé of the defendant, 16 years of age, while he was engaged in feeding sheets of brass to a machine called the straightening rolls, in the rolling mills of the defendant at Kenosha. The machine in question consists of an iron framework standing on the floor, supporting five metal rollers about six inches in diameter, which revolve by means of steam power applied to a pulley at one end of the machine, the rollers being so arranged as to compress the sheets of brass as they pass between them, three rollers being below and two above the sheets. The sheets of brass which the plaintiff was feeding on the day of the injury were about 12 feet long, 8 to 12 inches wide, and about as thick as an ordinary book cover. These sheets lay on the floor at one side of and in front of the machine, and the plaintiff, in feeding, would pick up one and put the end between the rollers as they revolved, and guide it with his hands as it passed between the rollers until it was nearly through, and then pick up another sheet and repeat the process. On the other side of the machine another employé received the sheet as it passed through and disposed of it. The object of rolling the sheets was to straighten and smooth them, they having already passed through other rolling machines, and having been gradually reduced in thickness from a bar about an inch thick. These various rolling processes produced some roughness on the edges of the sheets, and it appears that some of the sheets were ordinarily passed through the slitting machine to take off the rough edge before being put through the straightening rolls. The plaintiff had worked about four months in the defendant's mills before the accident; he was generally employed in the tinshop handling and wiping off tinned sheets of brass; at intervals, however, he had worked in the finishing department, and had several times been occupied in taking sheets from the straightening rolls, and twice before the injury he had fed the straightening rolls for short periods of time. He was furnished gloves by the defendant to use in doing his general work, and on the day of the accident, July 14, 1903, he had the gloves upon his hands buttoned at the wrist. On the day named he was feeding sheets through the straightening rolls, and as he fed them he held his hands on the edges of the sheets to guide them as they passed through. The evidence tends to show that after working for 15 minutes or so, a sharp longitudinal sliver of brass upon the edge of one of the sheets which he was feeding, pierced the palm of the glove upon his right hand, and drew his hand into the rolls, mangling it so as to necessitate amputation. The plaintiff claims that the defendant's foreman, one Schmelling, set him at this work, but this is denied by Schmelling. No warning of the danger was given him, nor direction as to the manner of doing the work. The plaintiff claims that he had no knowledge that such slivers ever formed upon the sheets, and the evidence tends to show that they only formed occasionally. The negligence claimed in the complaint was, first, in failing to provide a guard upon the machine, and, second, in failing to warn the plaintiff of the danger. The defendant denied that the plaintiff was set at work at the machine at all, and alleged that he was guilty of contributory negligence. The following special verdict was rendered: “Q. (1) Did the defendant, through its foreman, James Daniel Schmelling, direct the plaintiff to feed brass to the straightening rolls on the day and prior to the time of the accident? A. Yes. Q. (2) Did the plaintiff at the time of the accident feed the machine in the manner usually and customarily employed by experienced men? A. Yes. Q (3) Did the plaintiff at and prior to the time of the accident know that there were liable to be slivers and rough edges on the bars of brass run through the straightening rolls? A. Yes. Q. (4) Ought the plaintiff in the exercise of reasonable care and prudence and under all the circumstances of the case to have understood and comprehended the danger of his glove or hand being caught by the rough edges or slivers on the bars of brass? A. Yes. Q. (5) If your answer to question 1 is ‘Yes,’ then ought the defendant in the exercise of reasonable care and prudence, under all the circumstances and in view of all previous experience, to have apprehended that there was danger that the plaintiff's hand might be drawn into the rolls in the manner described in the testimony? A. No. Q. (6) If your answers to questions 1 and 5 are ‘Yes' then was the failure of the defendant to instruct the plaintiff as to the danger of his glove being caught on the slivers and rough edges of the bars of brass and as to the means of avoiding the same the proximate cause of the injury by the plaintiff sustained? A. No. Q. (7) Was the plaintiff guilty of any want of ordinary care which contributed to produce the injury sustained by him? A. No. Q. (8) In the event that the court is of the opinion that the plaintiff is entitled to a judgment in this case, then at what sum do you fix the damages by him sustained? A. $3,000.” Motions by the plaintiff to change the answers to the questions of the special verdict, and for judgment upon the verdict, and to set aside the verdict, and grant a new trial, were successfully overruled, and judgment was rendered on the verdict for the defendant, from which the plaintiff appeals.Norman L. Baker, for appellant.

Peter Fisher (Kearney, Thompson & Myers, of counsel), for respondent.

WINSLOW, J. (after stating the facts).

The respondent made a motion for nonsuit at the close of the plaintiff's evidence, and he now claims that, regardless of any question of error in the reception of evidence or charge of the court, the judgment should be affirmed because the plaintiff made no case. His contentions on this point are, in general, that no negligence was shown on the part of the defendant, and that even conceding that there was any such negligence shown, the plaintiff knew, or ought to have known of the danger, and assumed the risk. The plaintiff claimed negligence in two respects: (1) In not providing the machine with a guard; and (2) in not warning the plaintiff of the danger resulting from sharp slivers of brass which occasionally occurred on the sides of the sheets. As to the first of these claims there was evidence showing that a sort of a metal canopy or guard was sometimes placed over the top rollers which came down in front nearly to the sheet of brass, that this canopy was not on the machine at the time of the accident, and the claim is that its absence constituted negligence. The evidence, however, failed to show that this canopy or guard was in general use in this shop or other shops upon similar machines, that its principal object was to prevent foreign substances from falling on the sheet of brass as it was passing through the rolls, nor was it made apparent how it could in any way have prevented the accident in question. On these grounds the court rightly struck out the evidence as to the guard and eliminated that question from the case.

Upon the question of failure to warn, however, we think there...