Bathe v. Morehouse Stave And Manufacturing Company
| Decision Date | 11 March 1918 |
| Citation | 201 S.W. 925,199 Mo.App. 127 |
| Parties | JOSEPH BATHE, Respondent, v. MOREHOUSE STAVE and MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Butler Circuit Court.--Hon. J. P. Foard, Judge.
REVERSED.
Judgment reversed.
Sheppard & Sheppard for appellant.
Gloriod & Ing for respondent.
The plaintiff recovered a judgment for $ 300 damages on account of mashing the end of the third finger on his left hand. The defendant brings its appeal here and among other things contends that its demurrer to the evidence should have been sustained because under the most favorable view of the evidence the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence barring a recovery. As we agree with this contention it will only be necessary to set forth the evidence which plaintiff claims made a case for the jury.
The plaintiff, an employee of the defendant, was engaged in equalizing stave bolts. This is done by a machine simple in its make-up and operation. It consists of two circular saws on the same shaft, thirty-two inches apart, revolving toward the front of the machine which plaintiff faced while standing at his work. These two saws necessarily worked together and were driven by a belt which was run on a pulley. The bolt of wood to be sawed was placed on a frame, hinged at the bottom and at the top was held together by two metal arms on which rested the block of wood to be sawed by both saws at once. These two arms, when the work of sawing was in progress, were horizontal to the floor of the building, and were about eighteen inches apart. The width of these metal arms was something like an inch and a half or two inches. There was nothing between these two arms. The plaintiff says that he placed the bark side of the log, or the rounded part of the bolt, down, and then held it firmly with both hands and pushed the entire frame forward so that the saws engaged the bolt of wood, sawing off the ends. He testified that when the saws would begin to work on the edge of the stick they first came in contact with the tendency was to pull the stick downward and towards the saws which necessarily tended to lift the back side of the stick, its rounded condition on the bottom making it like a rocker, but that after the saws had penetrated half way through the stick the tendency was for the stick of wood to be pushed back toward the man holding it and not pulled forward toward the saws. As stated, all the space under the stick of wood was open except that taken up by the two metal arms on which the stick rested.
The charge of negligence is that the defendant failed to furnish the plaintiff a safe machine with which to work by reason of it permitting the belt which drove the two saws to become loose so that when the belt of wood was placed against the saws the belt would slip on the pulley and the saws would stop revolving which would tend to make the stick held by the...
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