Bibb Manup'g Co v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 27 February 1895
• Parties: BIBB MANUP'G CO. v. TAYLOR.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

23 S.E. 188

95 Ga. 615

BIBB MANUP'G CO.

v.TAYLOR.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Feb. 27, 1895.

Injury to Minor Employe — Warnings as to Danger.

1. Where a part of a machine consisted of very rapidly revolving cogwheels, the danger from which would be obvious even to a child of ordinary capacity, and an infant employe, who was such a child, had been repeatedly and distinctly warned of the danger and told that the cogs would cut off his finger or his hand, if caught therein, it was not indispensable to the sufficiency of the warnings that it should have been further pointed out to the child exactly wherein.the danger consisted, or explained to him how his hand would be injured by the operation of the cogwheels.

2. The court having charged to the effect that the warnings would not be sufficient unless they went to the extent which has been indicated in the preceding note, this was, in a case where the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence showed full diligence on the part of the defendant in all respects, such error as to require the granting of a new trial.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from superior court, Bibb county; J. L. Hardeman, Judge.

Action by Jesse Taylor, by his next friend, against the Bibb Manufacturing Company. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant brings error. Reversed.

Hardeman, Davis & Turner, for plaintiff in error.

Ryals & Stone, for defendant in error.

ATKINSON, J. The plaintiff, as the next friend of his minor son, brought an action against the defendant for personal injuries alleged to have resulted to his son in consequence of the negligence of the defendant in failing to inform the child of the dangerous character of certain machinery about which he was put to work in the defendant's factory, in consequence of which failure to inform the boy of the dangerous character of the machinery he was injured. The evidence was somewhat conflicting as to the age of the boy, though the greater weight of it seems to fix his age at about eight years. His father knew that he was to be employed or was employed by the defendant in its factory; knew of the character of the business in and about which he was employed; and the testimony shows, though the minor himself stated to the contrary, that the child had been repeatedly advised by various employes of the defendant, including the assistant superintendent, who was immediately in charge of the department in which the boy was employed, as to the danger attendant upon a negligent attention to his business connected with the machinery. It was shown that notwithstanding these repeated warnings the boy was accustomed, in his spirt of idle playfulness, to manipulate various cogwheels connected...