Bryant v. Great N. Paper Co.

• Decision Date: 12 April 1905
• Parties: BRYANT v. GREAT NORTHERN PAPER CO.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

60 A. 797

100 Me. 171

BRYANT

v. GREAT NORTHERN PAPER CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

April 12, 1905.

On Motion from Supreme Judicial Court, Somerset County.

Action by George L. Bryant against the Great Northern Paper Company for personal injuries. Verdict for plaintiff for $2,500. Motion for a new trial. Sustained.

Argued before WISWELL, C. J., and EMERY, WHITEHOUSE, STROUT, SAVAGE, and POWERS, JJ.

Forrest Goodwin, for plaintiff. E. N. Merrill, for defendant.

WISWELL, C. J. While the plaintiff was engaged in his work of oiling certain machinery and shafting in the defendant's pulp mill, he in some way became caught in the cogwheels of a plunger pump, and sustained serious injury. To recover for this injury he brought this action, and at the trial recovered a verdict, with damages assessed at $2,500. The case comes here on the defendant's motion for a new trial.

The plaintiff's first cause of complaint is that there might have been, at the place where he was caught between the cogwheels, guards or a protection of some kind which would have prevented an accident of that nature, and that the defendant was negligent in failing to provide such protection as was feasible. Assuming the truth of the plaintiff's contention in this respect, the complete answer to It, and one which should prevent his recovery upon that ground, is that the plaintiff had been engaged in this particular work, oiling this identical pump, from early in October until the time of the accident on February 22, 1903, a period of nearly five months, except that he had been out of the mill during that time, on account of sickness, for about five weeks. If there should have been some protection other than was provided by the defendant, the plaintiff knew that there was none, and, by his continuing in the employment for this period of time with a full knowledge of the absence of such protection as he claims should have been furnished, he assumed the risk attendant upon the performance of his work upon this machinery in the condition in which it was.

Another cause of complaint is this: Prior to the time that the plaintiff was absent from his work on account of sickness for a period of about five weeks, this pump was driven by steam power, and the two cogwheels connected therewith, and between which he was caught, revolved outward or away from each other, on top. While he was out of the mill, the steam engine was replaced with an electric motor, and the direction of the revolution...