Betz v. Winter & Goetz

• Decision Date: 16 April 1900
• Docket Number: 12
• Citation: 45 A. 1068,195 Pa. 346
• Parties: Betz v. Winter & Goetz
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

45 A. 1068

195 Pa. 346

Betz v. Winter & Goetz

No. 12

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

April 16, 1900

Argued February 27, 1899

Appeal, No. 12, Jan. T., 1899, by plaintiff, from order of C.P. Berks Co., Jan. T., 1898, No. 10, refusing to take off nonsuit in case of William H. Betz, by his friend and mother Mary A. L. Snyder, v. Ferdinand Winter and Ferdinand Goetz trading as Winter & Goetz. Affirmed.

Trespass for personal injuries. Before ENDLICH, J.

The court entered a compulsory nonsuit which it subsequently refused to take off.

The facts are stated by ENDLICH, J., as follows:

In June or July, 1895, the plaintiff, a well-developed and powerfully built boy of sixteen years, sought and obtained employment from the defendants at fleshing hides. This operation is conducted by means of a machine controlled by the operator standing in front of it upon an unavoidably slippery platform slightly dipping away from the machine, the very appearance and construction of which give warning of its dangerous character. In this instance the latter was emphasized by the fact that a strip of the front part of a wooden hood covering the cylinder, which, when the machine is at work, revolves at an exceedingly high rate of speed, had, for some considerable time, been broken off, or removed, exposing to full view the cylinder and the many converging rows of knives arranged upon it. The person who operated this machine before the plaintiff took his place at it was an acquaintance of the plaintiff's, who, in order to learn how to operate it attended upon him while at work and on several occasions operated the machine under his supervision, until, as he says, "I thought I could operate it." After being employed, he worked steadily at the machine for five or six months, when, on December 11, 1895, a not unusual obstruction to the passage of the hide under treatment having occurred the plaintiff, with a view to overcoming it without stopping the machine, leaned over the latter and, in endeavoring to recover himself, slipped and lurched towards the revolving cylinder, which caught his arm, drew it in and cut it off together with part of the shoulder blade. There was, as the plaintiff well knew, another way of remedying the difficulty that had occurred, which, whilst it would have been free from danger, involved a little more trouble and loss of time in stopping the machine. The plaintiff was working by the piece. The method which he did adopt and which, if successful, was more expeditious, had been tried by him before with success, and would, in all probability, have resulted in no disaster on this occasion had he not slipped on the platform, the cleaning of which belonged to his duties. The use of the machine at which plaintiff was injured was shortly thereafter discontinued by defendants, one of whose former employees had also been injured while working at it.

Error assigned was in refusing to take off the nonsuit.

Judgment affirmed.

William B. Bechtel, for appellant, cited Bennett v. Standard Plate Glass Co., 158 Pa. 120, Whitaker v. Campbell, 187 Pa. 113, Lebbering v. Struthers, 157 Pa. 312, Cargill v. Philadelphia Towel Supply & Laundry Co., 185 Pa. 269, McKee v. Bidwell, 74 Pa. 218, Penna. R. Co., v. Peters, 116 Pa. 206, and Crissey v. Hestonville, etc., Railway Co., 75 Pa. 83.

Cyrus G. Derr, with him Ermentrout & Ruhl, for appellees, cited Shaffer v. Haish, 110 Pa. 575, O'Keefe v. Thorn 24 W.N.C....