Bender v. N.Y. Glucose Co.

• Decision Date: 19 June 1905
• Citation: 72 N.J.L. 218,61 A. 388
• Parties: BENDER v. NEW YORK GLUCOSE CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

61 A. 388

72 N.J.L. 218

BENDER

v. NEW YORK GLUCOSE CO.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

June 19, 1905.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to Circuit Court, Essex County.

Action by John Bender against the New York Glucose Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.

Samuel Kalisch, for plaintiff in error. Bedle, Edwards & Thompson, for defendant in error.

DIXON, J. In the factory of the defendant machines for pressing oil cakes are used. The process required that the meal shall be placed in a mold, and then the workman by raising a lever introduces the steam power which pushes the mold up against a plate fixed above it, and thus forms the cake. The cake is then removed, and the process repeated. In the course of the work some of the oil and meal fall to the floor and render it slippery. Workmen were employed in the factory night and day, the same employés working two weeks by day and then two weeks by night. In the daytime a man was usually engaged in removing the waste meal and oil from the floor, but this service was omitted at night. The plaintiff, about 17 years of age, was first employed by the defendant to take the cakes away from the machines, and after he had served in this capacity four weeks, two by day and two by night, he was set to work managing a machine. On the third night of this service, as he was exerting his strength with both hands to raise the lever, his foot slipped, and to save himself from falling he inadvertently placed his hand upon the meal in the mold just as it was being pushed up against the plate. In consequence his hand was crushed so that amputation became necessary, and for this injury he brought suit against the defendant. At the trial in the Essex circuit a nonsuit was ordered upon the ground that the plaintiff's injury resulted from an obvious danger, and thereupon the present writ of error was issued.

We think the nonsuit should be maintained. The plaintiff's four weeks of service around the machines had fully apprised him of the slippery condition of the floor, and it needed much less experience than that through which youths of 17 years must have passed to teach him that, when straining to lift the lever, he might slip, and grasp impulsively at the nearest object to avoid a fall, and thus might subject himself to injury by the machine. The possibility of such a calamity as happened he could perceive and appreciate as well as a person of mature years, and no instructions...