"In
this case the respondent sues for personal injuries sustained
by him by being burned on November 25, 1910, in
defendant's factory on Jefferson avenue
near Walnut street in St. Louis, in which appellant
manufactured incandescent electric light bulbs. Plaintiff
went to work regularly for the defendant about the middle of
August, 1910, as an engineer, and amongst other duties had
charge of the employees in the filament treating room, but
was likely at any time to be called to other parts of the
factory. In this treating room, carbon filaments were
subjected to an electric current in a vapor of gasoline gas,
whereby a portion of the gasoline was decomposed and
deposited upon the filament. In the defendant's Jefferson
avenue factory, which fronted on the west side of Jefferson
avenue, it had, at the time plaintiff was hurt, two kinds of
filament treating machines, known as the old or hand machines
and the new or automatic machines. In the old machines half a
dozen of the filaments were placed in metallic clips on a
table and then over them was put a glass bell-shaped jar. The
air was then drawn out of the jar and gasoline vapor allowed
to take its place. When this had been done a current of
electricity was run through the filaments for some ten or
twelve seconds, and then air again readmitted into the jar
which was then raised, and the treated filaments replaced by
untreated ones, and the operation was repeated.
For use in these machines the gasoline supplied was kept in a
bottle, holding about a gallon, under the table. This bottle
was closed by a rubber stopper through which a small glass
tube passed, and thence a tube composed of alternate sections
of glass and rubber tubing led up through the table to the
space under the bell-shaped jar. The gasoline supplied could
be shut off by means of a clamp fastened over one of the
rubber sections of the supply tube. In order to increase the
flow of gas from the gasoline in the bottle, the bottle was
enclosed in a box with an electric light bulb placed
alongside of the bottle. This bulb screwed into a socket in
the bottom of the box and could be lighted by simply screwing
it down and unlighted by unscrewing it. The
box was lined with asbestos and had a cover which fitted
closely around the neck of the bottle, and which, working on
a pivot, could be swung back so as to leave the box
uncovered. When the cover was in place it would be impossible
to see whether or not the electric bulb in the box was
burning, unless one stood almost immediately over the box.
This was because the cover fitted closely. Every time the
bell-shaped jar on the old machines was raised up a certain
amount of gasoline gas would be discharged into the
atmosphere, and often the pressure would become so great in
the bottle that the stopper would blow out or the connections
in the tube from the bottle would break, and of course in
either of those events gasoline vapor would be discharged
into the atmosphere. The old machines were two in number, and
were placed along the east end, or Jefferson avenue front, of
the filament treating room. The new or automatic machines
were four in number placed at a long table running along the
south side of the room. These new machines were brass tubes
in which the top was simply pulled off, and the filaments
inserted in them from the top. The gasoline for use on the
new machines was supplied from a gasometer placed on the
outside of the building on its south side. In order to
stimulate the flow of gas from this gasometer the pipes
leading therefrom to the automatic machines were run through
a larger pipe, and between the two pipes steam was caused to
circulate. This steam was produced by a steam boiler located
in the southwest corner of the filamment treating room and
the steam was generated in this boiler by a large open flame
gas burner placed under the boiler and a few inches from the
floor. This treating room was something in the neighborhood
of 20x14 feet in size. When the filaments had been treated or
'flashed' as it was technically called, they were
afterwards 'spot tested.' This was
done on the old machines by simply replacing the treated
filaments in the clamp under the bell jar and then
withdrawing the air, thereby creating a vacuum, and then
running an electric current through the filaments. If it had
been well treated the filament would present a uniform
appearance of incandescence, but if it was a defective one,
spots would be seen upon it. For spot testing, therefore, no
gasoline was used. The completion of the installation of the
automatic machines in this treating room was about the middle
of October, 1910. George W. Budde installed the electric
wiring for these automatic machines and while around there
acted subordinately to plaintiff Bryan in the treating room.
The treating machines were operated by a number of girls. Mr.
Ferguson, defendant's superintendent, was warned by Mr.
Wallace, the chemist, of the danger of installing the open
gas flame under the boiler in this room because of the
gasoline vapor. The gasoline vapor, especially in the fall
and winter, when it was impossible to properly ventilate the
room, became very noticeable, usually in the afternoon,
causing the girls to get headaches, and on many occasions
having to be excused from work on that account.
"On
November 25, 1910, plaintiff Bryan had had some trouble in
getting proper results from the automatic machines on a
certain kind of filament and during the forenoon of that day
he and Miss Brown were working on those filaments on one of
the old machines. During the course of the afternoon, while
he and Miss Brown were still working on the machine treating
filaments, plaintiff Bryan was called by his duties to
another department of the factory, and when he went out he
told Miss Lillian Taylor, the forewoman in the room, to have
Miss Brown, when she had finished the batch she was on, to go
to spot testing. At this time Mr. Budde was not in the room.
When plaintiff Bryan got back, in about an hour or an hour
and a half, Mr. Budde was there working on a valve for one of
the automatic machines. While Budde was so
engaged and plaintiff Bryan was doing some work at the east
end of the table upon which the automatic machines were
there was a sudden pop under the table of the old or hand
machine, at which Grace Brown was sitting. Budde got up and
went over to the place and found that there had been a
parting at one place between one of the rubber and one of the
glass sections of the tube leading from the bottle of
gasoline in the box to the bell jar of the machine, and Budde
fixed this by simply slipping the end of the rubber section
over that of the glass section of the tube and then turned...
