Anthony v. Leeret
| Decision Date | 07 June 1887 |
| Citation | 105 N.Y. 591,12 N.E. 561 |
| Parties | ANTHONY v. LEERET and others. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
I. K. Fuller, for appellants.
M. M. Waters, for respondent.
The plaintiff, by the lamentable accident which is the subject of this action, has sustained a most severe and probably permanent injury. The question which we are to determine respects the liability of the defendants, on whose premises it happened, and between whom and the plaintiff existed at the time the relation of master and servant. The basis of the claim to charge the defendants with the consequences of the accident is negligence. The jury have found, upon this issue, in favor of the plaintiff. We are called upon to determine whether the evidence supports a recovery and justifies the judgment rendered.
The defendants were engaged in the manufacture of boxes and other articles from wood, and for the purposes of their business occupied a building of two stories, in which the various processes of dressing rough lumber, cutting it into suitable lengths and forms, and manufacturing the same into boxes and other articles, were conducted. The planing-machines were on the first floor, and the men employed in this department were in charge of a foreman. The saws and cutting-machines were on the second floor, over the planers, and the lumber, after it had been planed in the room below, was passed up by men employed in that room to the upper room through a trap-door in the floor of the second story, and there piled on either side the space between the trapdoor and the north and south walls of the building, leaving a space or alley-way between the ends of the piles. The cutting-machines were near the north wall, and the planed lumber was taken from the piles to the cutting machines, and cut into the lengths and forms required. The west side of the second story was used as the nailing-room, in which workmen were employed in putting together pieces obtained from the cutting-room, and making them into boxes. Each nailer procured the pieces he needed for his particular work, by passing from the nailing-room through a door in the partition dividing the nailing-room from the cutting-room, and thence, through the passage-way made by the two piles of lumber, to the cutting machine, where they selected an armful of pieces, and took them by the same passage-way to the nailing-room. The trap-door was in the passage-way. It was constructed of two thicknesses of boards, with cleats, was quite heavy, weighing, as stated by one witness, 50 punds, and swung to the north, and in this door on the top was a staple and ring for raising it from above. The opening in the floor was about three feet square. The trap-door was firm and solid, and it is not claimed that it was out of repair, or was in any way defective.
The plaintiff was a nailer in the box-room, and had been engaged in this business in this place for 22 months prior to the accident. On the occasion of the injury he was returning from the cutting-room, through the passageway, to the nailing-room, carrying in his arms a large load of pieces, and was in the act of stepping upon the trap-door when it was suddenly and without notice thrown open from below, and he fell with his load to the lower floor, sustaining the injuries complained of. The trap-door was placed in the floor seven or eight years before the accident. It was conveniently located for the purpose designed, and was placed there to avoid the necessity of carrying the planed lumber to the second story by the stairways on the outside of the building. It was shown that, about two years prior to the accident in question, a boy fell through the opening, but fortunately he was not injured. It does not appear how the door came to be open on that occasion. This incident, however, led to instructions being given to the workmenthat the door should never be opened from below. Before this the men in the planing-room would sometimes open the door by pushing against it from the under side with a board, although it was difficult to do this by reason of the height of the floor and the weight of the door. But, after the boy fell through, the men employed in the planing-room were instructed not to open the door from below, but to rap on the door when they desired to have it opened, and wait till some one opened it from above, or to send a person from below to open it. The general uniformity of the practice thus enjoined is apparent from the plaintiff's own statement that, during the whole 22 months of his employment, he had never known the...
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... ... 520; Williams ... v. Del. L. & W. Rd. Co., 116 N.Y. 628; Powers v ... N.Y. L. E. & W. R. R. Co., 98 N.Y. 274; Anthony v ... Leeret, 105 N.Y. 591; Shaw v. Sheldon, 103 N.Y ... 667; Hickey v. Taaffe, 105 N.Y. 26; Findell v ... Del. L. & W. Rd. Co., 129 ... ...
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Reilly v. Nicoll
...does not fall within the law of fellow servantcy, because the risks are extraordinary, and not assumed unless known. Anthony v. Leeret, 105 N. Y. 591, 12 N. E. 561; Kolb v. Enterprise Co., 36 I11. App. 419; Wannamaker v. Burke, 111 Pa. 423, 2 Atl. 500; Balle v. Leather Co., 73 Mich. 158, 41......
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McGinnis v. Hydraulic Press Brick Co.
...Servant, sec. 935, that: "An employer has a right to arrange his own premises in any way which suits his convenience." [Anthony v. Leeret, 105 N.Y. 591, 12 N.E. 561.] It reasonably plain that any other rule would in actual practice have the effect of making an employer an insurer of the saf......