Balle v. Detroit Leather Co.
| Decision Date | 11 January 1889 |
| Citation | 73 Mich. 158,41 N.W. 216 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | BALLE v. DETROIT LEATHER CO. |
Appeal from circuit court, Wayne county; HENRY N. BREVOORT, Judge.
This is an action of trespass on the case, brought in the Wayne circuit court, to recover damages resulting from the death of Peter Balle, by the negligence of defendant while he was employed in defendant's tannery in the city of Detroit. The court below on the trial directed a verdict for defendant. Plaintiff brings error. Balle was about 39 years of age at the time of his death. He left a widow and six children surviving him. He entered defendant's employment on January 3, 1887, and was drowned in one of the defendant's tan vats, February 18th following. Before entering the service of defendant, he had worked at the pipe foundry and stove-works in Detroit, and for a time had been a teamster. The defendant carries on a tannery. On the floor of the building where this business is carried on, called the "beam-house," there are twenty-two vats. These vats are nine feet square and six feet deep, and come up with the level of the floor. These vats are located ten on each side of the room and two on the inside. The employment of the deceased consisted in taking hides from vats 1 and 2, and putting them into wash-wheel 1, at the south end, which was the only place they could be put in. The body was found in vat 1, with the head towards the north. The shaft runs over these vats lengthwise, upon which slowly revolve paddle-wheels. These wheels are about eighteen inches from the edge of the vats, and a man standing on the edge could not be struck by them. The space between the vats and wash-wheels consists of a level floor four feet wide, a trough or gutter about six inches wide, and the edge of the vats about two inches wide. In this space there was a box about three feet high, three feet wide, and four feet long, thus leaving a space of level floor about sixteen inches wide, the trough or gutter of about six inches, and two inches on the edge between the box and the vats. The employment of plaintiff's intestate was in taking these hides from the vats and putting them into the wash-wheels. In doing this he took one in each hand, and dragged them diagonally from the edge of the vats, where they laid after being pulled out, to the wash-wheel, walking backwards from the vat to the wash-wheel. In the course of doing this work the passage-way became very greasy and slippery. Prior to the 3d of January, and a short time before the deceased entered upon his work there, the box described above, containing hen manure used in tanning, was placed in the position described. It is claimed by the plaintiff that the deceased was put to work there, and continued such employment without any instruction or warning from his employers of the danger to be anticipated in the manner of doing the work, or in the place where he was working, and that on that morning, while so drawing hides to the wash-wheel, he fell, and was found drowned in the vat; that it was apparent that he was drawing hides in the usual way when he fell, from the fact that the ends of two hides were found trailing into the vat where deceased was found. The wheel in this vat had been put in motion by the foreman on the opposite side, and without any warning to the deceased. No one saw the deceased fall, and his death was not discovered until he was subsequently missed from his place there, when the machinery was stopped, and search was made, resulting in the finding of deceased in the vat. It is claimed that defendant was negligent in two particulars: (1) In allowing the box to be where it was; (2) in starting a wheel adjoining the place where the deceased was working.
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