Bessey v. Newiciiawanick Co.

• Decision Date: 27 March 1900
• Citation: 46 A. 806,94 Me. 61
• Parties: BESSEY v. NEWICIIAWANICK CO.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

46 A. 806

94 Me. 61

BESSEY

v. NEWICIIAWANICK CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 27, 1900.

Action by Howard Bessey, by his next friend, against the Newichawanick Company. Case reported, and judgment for defendant.

This was an action on the case to recover damages received by the plaintiff, a boy of 17 years, while working in the dye room of a woolen mill of the defendant in South Berwick. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant was negligent in two particulars: First, in the construction of its vat; and, second, in failing to notify the plaintiff of the dangers of such construction, the plaintiff being of such immature age that he did not appreciate the danger of the work he was set to perform.

Argued before PETERS, C. J., and HASKELL, WISEWELL, STROUT, SAVAGE, and FOGLER, JJ.

C. Dean Varney, Edward F. Gowell, and Geo. F. Haley, for plaintiff. George C. Yeaton and John Kivel, for defendant

PETERS, C. J.The essential facts in this case are not really in dispute, but only the inferences to be fairly deduced therefrom. To the court, by agreement of the parties, is left the decision of the case upon both the law and the fact.

The plaintiff at the time his injury was received was 17 years and 2 months old, and, as far as appears, possessed of such degree of intelligence as ordinarily belongs to one of his years. He had been in the employment of the defendant company in their mill, off and on, in different ways, for about 2 years, attending breakers and hoppers in the card room, then becoming a spinner in the mill, and lastly working in the dye house, where he had been employed at work, jointly with another hand, about 4 weeks before the accident happened; thus becoming a good deal familiarized, no doubt, with different phases of employment in the mill. Before his being personally employed in the dye house, he had been in and out of the room where the dyeing was carried on, noticing the men at their work, and assisting them occasionally to some extent.

The dye house contained four kettles or vats, each 6 feet long and 5 feet wide, and 2 feet and 7 inches in height above a planking which circled each vat at the floor. The planks, 8 or 10 inches wide, were laid flatly on the floor, and were "beveled off" from the vat. Each vat, having clamps upon it, required the hole in the floor where it was to be set to be a little larger than the vat would be without such attachments, leaving an open space around the vat, and the planks were used to stop up the opening.

There was an open frame (a structure fitted with slats) designed to be sunk into the vat, upon which wool and blankets were loaded (sometimes the one, and sometimes the other), and then lowered into the vat, to be dyed. The frame was fitted with a hoisting gear, so that it could be swung over and then lowered into the vat, containing boiling-hot dye, and raised up out of the vat when the process of dyeing became completed.

In order to raise the frame out of the vat, the two men in attendance had to do some coupling of hooks with rings connected with the gearing, which necessitated their leaning over the sides of the vat, while facing each other, to a point near the center of the vat; and the plaintiff, while performing his part of such an act, somehow fell into the vat, and, before he could be rescued by his coworker and another person at work in the same room, was severely scalded and injured thereby.

The plaintiff alleges that he was injured...