Coulter v. Union Laundry Co.

• Decision Date: 22 December 1906
• Parties: COULTER v. UNION LAUNDRY CO.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

87 P. 973

34 Mont. 590

COULTER v. UNION LAUNDRY CO.

Supreme Court of Montana

December 22, 1906

Appeal from District Court, Lewis & Clark County; J. M. Clements Judge.

Action by Rilla M. Coulter against the Union Laundry Company. A motion for nonsuit was granted, and, from an order granting a new trial, defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Holloway J., dissenting.

T. J Walsh and W. T. Pigott, for appellant.

E. A Carleton, for respondent.

MILBURN J.

This is an action to recover damages for damage done to the respondent, in that her hand was caught, burned, and crushed by and between the rolls of a mangle, which machine she was working at appellant's laundry. It is alleged in the complaint that the defendant is a corporation; that plaintiff was injured by the mangle about May 1, 1902; that she was hired by the concern about March 10, 1902, to run a machine called a neckband ironer, and continuously worked for the defendant until the time of her injury. Soon after being thus hired, she, in addition to running the ironer, was ordered by the foreman of the company to assist from time to time in running and operating the mangle, and that, after finishing her regular work on the neck band ironer, by the direction of the foreman she would assist other employés in running the mangle; that on the 1st day of May, while so assisting, and without fault on her part, as she alleges, her right hand was caught between the rollers of the mangle, they being of iron or steel and heated to a very high degree and revolving with great speed, and her fingers and hand were drawn in between the rollers, which were very close together. Her fingers and hand were severely burned and injured, and by reason of such injury she has been permanently disabled and prevented from following her occupation and incapacitated from doing any considerable work or labor. It is further alleged that the defendant, regardless of its duty to provide fit, suitable, and reasonably safe machinery and appliances with which she could perform her duties while at work for the defendant, failed and neglected so to do, but, on the contrary, at the time the injury occurred it did carelessly, negligently, and recklessly furnish and provide an unsafe, defective, and dangerous mangle for her to do her said work upon, and directed her to work with such dangerous and unsafe machine; that it was dangerous, unsafe, and defective in this: that it had no reasonably safe and proper "guard," such as such machines should have, the guard being for the special purpose of protecting workmen in operating the machine; that the guard was twisted and bent out of its proper shape, so that it furnished little or no protection; that, as a result of the guard being twisted and bent, the machine became dangerous, defective, and unsafe, by reason of which the injury was occasioned. The defendant admits the employment and injury, but denies all the other material allegations of the complaint. "Further answering the said amended complaint, the defendant avers that such injuries as the plaintiff received were received in consequence of the ordinary risk attendant upon the employment in which she was engaged, and for which she was employed, and which she had assumed; and that whatever defects there may have been in the said mangle, if there were any, were fully known to the plaintiff at the time she was injured and for a long time theretofore." Defendant also pleads contributory negligence. No point is made in the brief as to her alleged negligence. A replication was filed denying the new matter of the answer.

As to the facts in the case: It is undisputed that the plaintiff was seriously injured. The plaintiff was in her twenty-second year when she was hurt. In addition to the facts alleged in the complaint, the circumstances further appearing from plaintiff's own testimony are as follows: She says she was employed in the beginning to iron handkerchiefs and help with other ironing by hand, and, in addition to working the neckband ironer, she ironed handkerchiefs and plain clothes by hand, and that was all she was employed to do. She was put to work on the mangle by the man who employed her. A few days after she came to the place she was asked by the foreman to go and help on the mangle. She described in her testimony the machine called the "mangle" with great particularity, and showed that she was familiar with the manner of its working. On the second or third day she was directed to help on that machine. Part of the time she folded clothes and part of the time she would feed the machine. She says that she "helped out on it sometimes every day for a few days, and then again it would be a week or a few days that I didn't work on it at all. I did a little of everything, but I did more folding and shaking out than I did feeding." At the time a Mrs. Prickett, acting as "forelady," gave her orders to work on the mangle in the absence of the foreman. "About one-half of the time I was there I didn't work on the mangle at all. No more than three or four days out of the week would I feed the mangle, and sometimes I didn't do that, but helped on it. I didn't feed on it as much as I folded or shook out. On the same day we might do some feeding, some folding, and some shaking out. There was a guard across the mangle, but the guard was sprung in the center. The guard is a brass rail that goes along over the brass plate that you push the clothes in under. At the ends [of the guard] I could only just get my fingers under it, but in the center I could easily put my hand under it. When the guard rail was turned down you could not put anything under it, so it must have been sprung an inch or more. When I was employed there the guard was kept turned up. I never had any trouble in operating the mangle. On the 1st day of May I was hurt on it. We were putting some tablecloths in. The man stood at my right. He was holding one end of it and I was holding the other, and we put it through the second time, and it was wrinkled in the center, and I had my right hand holding it down in the center to go smooth, and the first thing I knew, my right hand was caught between the rollers. The rollers were hot, being heated with steam, and revolving fast. My hand went up to the wrist." Again she stated, "I could not get my fingers under more than half way" at the ends of the guard rail. The distance between the guard rail and the rollers was about three or four inches. The rail protects the hand by striking it, and when the hand strikes the rail, one would know that the hand cannot be put further under and "you would pull it back very easily." At the time she was paying strict attention to her work, trying to get a wrinkle out of the tablecloth. "I have seen the mangle at 'Beck's' laundry often, and I saw it when they first put it up. I had worked for or with Mrs. Beck. I worked at the old Parisian laundry. That was about five years ago, if I remember right. I was employed at the laundry at that time. I worked there from June until December, five years ago. I was neckband ironer there, and occasionally I would be sent over to the mangle, but I almost always folded there. If I were operating the neckband ironer and that work was completed, I was sent to the mangle. I seldom worked at the mangle at Beck's. I don't believe I ever fed on it. I saw the machine operate while there. That was in 1901." After quitting Beck's she went later to work for the Union laundry, which was the old Parisian laundry. "I had worked at that place about two years before. They had the same instrument the Union laundry had. I am certain that the guard rail was bent in the middle *** and I often heard the girls speak about it, and you could easily see it was bent. I knew it was bent some when I went to work there. It had been that way of my own knowledge. Any one operating the machine could see that it was bent. I am positive of that. I didn't work more than 14 or 15 months in laundries altogether. I knew *** if the hand should go between these two rollers it would be squeezed, and, of course, burnt."

A very able brief has been filed by each of the contending parties. The case was tried in the district court in Helena, in department No. 1. On motion, a nonsuit was granted. The case was afterwards transferred to department No. 2, and a new trial was granted. The appeal is from the order granting a new trial.

Seven specifications of error are set out in the brief of counsel for the appellant, the defendant company. The first one-that is to say, that the court erred in granting respondent's motion for a new trial-includes all.

The first point raised is that the statement on motion for a new trial does not contain any recital that all the evidence introduced at the trial is contained therein, and that the only thing in the record to lead to such conclusion is the certificate of the judge settling the statement on motion for a new trial. All that is necessary for us to say on this point is that it has been heretofore settled by this court, and that it is no longer a matter of dispute, rightly or wrongly, that, when the judge in making his certificate (settling the statement) adds to it a recital that 'the foregoing statement contains all the evidence,' it is sufficient. Passavant v. Arnold, 34 Mont. ..., 87 P. 905.

The second point is that the complaint is insufficient in that it does not state that the defect in the mangle was known to the respondent company, or that it ought to have been known to it. There is not any presumption that the defendant in such a case knows of latent defects, if any. The complaint alleges sufficient to show that this was a patent defect, and therefore it follows that defendant was charged with knowledge of its existence....