Downey v. Sawyer
| Decision Date | 03 December 1892 |
| Parties | DOWNEY v. SAWYER et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
J.F. Simmons and H.H. Pratt, for plaintiff.
A Lord, for defendants.
When the injury was received the plaintiff was in his sixteenth year, and of ordinary intelligence and capacity. He had worked for six weeks in a wool-carding room, four weeks feeding wool to the first breakers, and then as a spare hand assisting other boys in putting in ends, taking off spools and in other ways. One of these boys had received an injury on the day before the plaintiff was hurt, and he was ordered to take his place. This required him to attend to taking off spools of partially carded wool from the side-drawing apparatus of the first breaker, place them in a box, and when necessary, in the frames from which the second breaker was fed. In the afternoon of the second day on which he was so employed, while kneeling upon the floor and putting on a belt which ran the guide bar of the side-drawing apparatus his sleeve was caught by the revolving gears which operated the drawing drum, and his arm was drawn into the gears. One gear was about an inch and a half, and the other about three inches, in diameter. They were set at right angles to each other, the larger one at right angles to the side of the carding machine. They were about 13 inches from the floor, and as he knelt were by his side at the right. They were in plain sight, and the plaintiff testified that he had seen them revolving, and that they were going round and round all the time, and that he knew they were in motion and dangerous; that it would have been careless to put his finger or hand in them when they were going, and that if his hand got caught it would hurt him; and that if he attempted to put on the belt he would be liable to have his arm caught in the gears. He had put on the belt once, and only once, before, but had seen it put on, and testified that he always had a dread of putting on the belt because he thought it was dangerous, and thought that if he put it on he would be liable to get his arm caught in the gearing. He also testified that for this reason he had waited for 15 or 20 minutes for some one to come and put on the belt. Although finally told to go and put it on, this was certainly enough to bring him within the settled rule, that one who attempts to do work which exposes him to an obvious, known, and appreciated danger assumes the risk of injury. Patnode v. Cotton Mills, 157 Mass. ----, 32 N.E. 161, (October, 1892, Hampden,) and cases cited. And, however his knowledge may have been acquired, there is no obligation upon the employer to give to the workman warning of a known danger. Pratt v. Prouty, 153 Mass. 333, 26 N.E. 1002; De...
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