Columbia Box Co. v. Saucier

• Decision Date: 27 March 1914
• Docket Number: 4004.
• Citation: 213 F. 310
• Parties: COLUMBIA BOX CO. v. SAUCIER.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

213 F. 310

COLUMBIA BOX CO. v. SAUCIER.

No. 4004.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

March 27, 1914

William R. Gentry, of St. Louis, Mo. (M. F. Watts and Edwin W. Lee both of St. Louis, Mo., on the brief), for plaintiff in error.

John C Robertson, of St. Louis, Mo., for defendant in error.

Before SANBORN and HOOK, Circuit Judges, and POPE, District Judge.

HOOK Circuit Judge.

Etienne Saucier, an employe of the Columbia Box Company in its factory at St. Louis, Mo., whose duty was to pick up and carry away the scraps of wood which fell from the sawing tables, lost his balance on the slippery floor, and in an effort to regain himself his arm came in contact with a rapidly revolving circular saw and was severed. He sued the company for damages and recovered judgment. In his petition he counted specifically upon the failure of the company to comply with a statute of Missouri (section 7828, R.S. 1909) requiring that dangerous machinery 'be safely and securely guarded when possible,' also upon its negligence with respect to the condition of the floor. No point is made here as to the latter. The saw, like others there, ran perpendicularly through the center of a table with half its width above the top. It was dangerous and could have been but was not, guarded. Though Saucier's employment did not include work at the table with the saw, he knew the saw was there, was in motion, and was unguarded.

As stated by counsel for the company:

'The sole question involved in this case is whether the plaintiff Saucier assumed the risk of injury that might result from the unguarded condition of the saw by which his arm was cut off.'

Counsel relies on St. Louis Cordage Co. v. Miller, 61 C.C.A. 477, 126 F. 495, 63 L.R.A. 551, and the other cases following it which hold that, though a state statute requiring the employer to safeguard dangerous machinery is violated, the employe assumes the risk if, knowing the danger, he continues at work. But if the highest judicial tribunal of the state has declared that the statute has abolished the defense of assumption of risk in such cases, obviously it must be so regarded in the courts of the United States. And this is so though the statute, as in the case at bar, contains no express words to that effect, but the conclusion of the state court is reached in its application and by a consideration of its language and purpose in the light of general principles of law. In Williams v. Gaylord, 186 U.S. 157, 163, 22 Sup.Ct. 798, 800, 46 L.Ed. 1102, there was an attempt to distinguish between the construction and the application of a state statute by a state court and an assertion that the latter is not binding upon the courts of the United States. The Supreme Court said:

'We are unable to accept the distinction. To accept it would deprive the state courts of the power to declare the implication of state statutes, and confine interpretation to the mere letter. The Supreme Court of California declared the effect of the act of 1880 as deduced from the language and purpose of the act, and this was necessarily an exercise of construction. The very essence of construction is the extension of the meaning of a statute beyond its letter, and it can seldom be done without applying some principle of law general in some branch of jurisprudence, and if whenever such application occurs the authority of the state courts to interpret the statute ceases, the federal tribunals, instead of following, could lead those courts in declaring the meaning of the legislation of the states.'

Both the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals of Missouri in construing and applying the statute involved in this case and other similar legislative acts have announced the following conclusions which we believe to be the settled doctrine in that state: A statute imposing upon employers specific duties for the safeguarding of dangerous machinery, appliances, and places of labor extends to a field not covered by general principles of law in which, without the statute, the duties would not exist and their omission would not be negligent. Such statutes are not solely for the individual benefit of the employes, but proceed also from broad considerations of public policy-- the interest of the state in the protection of the lives and limbs of its citizens. Partly for this reason a violation is sometimes, as by a section of the statute at bar, made a public offense. By construction of such statutes a cause of action is given for disobedience resulting in injury equally as if given in express terms. Negligence need not be proved except as failure to comply with the law may be so regarded or so termed. Contributory negligence is a defense as in cases under general rules of law. Assumption of risk rests upon an implied contract between employer and employe. The positive command of the statute to safeguard cannot be defeated by an implication of a contract between the employer and employe that the latter shall assume the risk resulting from the former's disobedience. But there is a qualification of the doctrine of assumption of risk which does not generally obtain elsewhere. It is that if the employe remains at work when the danger is so glaring and imminent that no prudent man would do so it is regarded as a case of contributory negligence. In other respects the phrase 'assumption of risk' has the same meaning as elsewhere. The qualification mentioned is not material in the case at bar. Only those cases in the Supreme Court of Missouri which bear most directly upon the question of assumption of risk in connection with the violation of a legislative act need be referred to. It may be said at this point the section of the revised statutes in question is a revision of section 3 of the act of April 20, 1891 (Laws 1891, p. 160), which required the guarding of belting, shafting, gearing, and drums. In the revision the words 'machines' and 'machinery' were inserted. A decision under the old section on the matter in hand would be as authoritative as one under the new.

In Durrant v. Mining Co., 97 Mo. 62, 10 S.W. 484, the...