Bowen v. Worumbo Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 24 December 1908
• Citation: 72 A. 685,105 Me. 31
• Parties: BOWEN v. WORUMBO MFG. CO.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

72 A. 685

105 Me. 31

BOWEN

v. WORUMBO MFG. CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Dec. 24, 1908.

(Official.)

On Motion from Supreme Judicial Court. Androscoggin County.

Action on the case for personal injuries by Lulu C. Bowen against the Worumbo Manufacturing Company. Verdict for plaintiff, and defendant moves for a new trial. Motion overruled. Judgment on the verdict.

Action on the case to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, who was an operative in the defendant's woolen mill, and caused by the alleged negligence of the defendant in failing to keep in a reasonably safe and suitable condition a certain stairway connected with its mill, and habitually used by the plaintiff and other operatives for the purpose of entering and leaving the mill. Plea, the general issue. Verdict for plaintiff for $1,475. The defendant then filed a general motion for a new trial.

The case is stated in the opinion.

Argued before EMERY, C. J., and WHITE-HOUSE, SPEAR, CORNISH, KING, and BIRD, JJ.

MoGillicuddy & Morey, for plaintiff. Newell & Skelton, for defendant,

WHITEHOUSE, J. The plaintiff was an operative in the defendant's woolen mill and recovered a verdict of $1,475 for injuries received by slipping on the second step from the top of an outside stairway leading to the mill, and falling to the ground a distance of 13 feet. At the trial the defendant introduced no testimony except that of a medical expert, who testified in regard to the plaintiff's present physical condition. The evidence in behalf of the plaintiff upon the question of the defendant's liability was therefore entirely uncontradicted, and must receive its full probative force. The case comes up on motion to set aside the verdict.

At the rear entrance to the mill was an outside open stairway of 21 steps descending to the ground, with a railing on each side about 3 feet above the stairs, but without any balusters between the treads and the rail. This stairway was uncovered and entirely exposed to the elements, and was so located and constructed that the drippings from the roof above fell directly upon the upper steps.

The accident happened on Monday noon, December 10, 1906. The plaintiff had then been employed in the mill about 16 months. Some time between Saturday and Monday, and possibly at an earlier date, the melting snow and ice on the roof had dripped upon the stairway and formed a coating of ice upon the steps varying in thickness from half an inch to two inches, but this ice was concealed on Monday noon by a few inches of light snow that had fallen Sunday night and that forenoon. The plaintiff came out of the mill at noontime and saw the snow on the steps, but states that she saw no ice there, and there is no evidence in the case that she knew that there was ice on the steps at that hour. Three persons, one woman and two men, immediately preceded her and passed down without accident. She started to come down with her right hand on the rail and found a safe footing in the snow on the first step, but slipped on the second one and fell under the railing and off of the end of the steps to the ground. Twelve or 15 other operatives came down this stairway at the same noon hour.

There was undisputed evidence that not only was the snow frequently shoveled off of these stairs in the winter, but that the ice forming upon them from time to time was frequently chopped and scraped off by the servants of the...