Duvall v. Armour Packing Co.

• Citation: 95 S.W. 978,119 Mo. App. 150
• Parties: DUVALL v. ARMOUR PACKING CO.
• Decision Date: 18 June 1906
• Court: Court of Appeal of Missouri (US)

95 S.W. 978

119 Mo. App. 150

DUVALL v. ARMOUR PACKING CO.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

June 18, 1906.

MASTER AND SERVANT—INJURIES TO SERVANT —CHANGE OF EMPLOYMENT—ASSUMED RISK.

Where plaintiff, without any request or direction from her foreman, and, so far as proved, without his knowledge, attempted to operate a mincemeat pressing machine during the temporary absence from the room of the operators of the machine, and was injured in so doing, her employer was not liable therefor; she having been engaged only to perform other and nondangerous service.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; John G. Park, Judge.

Action by Minnie Duvall against the Armour Packing Company. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.

Angevine & Cubbison and W. V. Jordan, for appellant. Hamner, Hamner & Calvin, for respondent.

ELLISON, J.

The plaintiff, a young woman of 18 years, was an employé of the defendant, a meat-packing establishment, and was injured by having her hand so bruised and broken as to make it necessary to amputate one of her fingers. She brought suit for damages, charging the defendant with negligence. She prevailed in the trial court.

The defendant is a large meat-packing establishment, where many products are turned out which are not strictly packed or cured meat. Among other things, it made mincemeat of many ingredients mixed with meat. This mass would be separated into one-pound packages and then put into a machine, where it was compressed and made ready for market. Plaintiff had been working for defendant about three weeks. When she began work it was in what was known as the mincemeat room, and her work was weighing these packages of mincemeat. She was hurt in that room while working temporarily at the pressing machine. Two girls generally worked the machine, though sometimes only one. When one or both the girls would leave the room temporarily, some other girl in the room, at work at something else, would go to the machine and run it during this temporary absence. It was during the temporary absence of these girls that plaintiff, who was nearest by, stepped up and continued the machine in operation for a few moments, when she suddenly slipped on the floor and in throwing out her hand, to catch hold of anything within reach for protection from a fall, she caught the hopper of the machine and the plunger struck her hand, inflicting the injury which she received. The defendant contends that, in leaving her work at weighing and going to and running the machine, plaintiff was a mere volunteer, and was outside of the duties of her employment.

There is no doubt that if an employé voluntarily leaves the work for which he is engaged by his employer, and engages in other work for such employer, and while at the latter work is injured, he cannot hold the employer liable. Schaub v. Railway Co., 106 Mo. 74, 16 S. W. 924, 20 Amer. & Eng. Ency. 131; Allen v. Hixson, 111 Ga. 460, 36 S. E. 810; Atlantic Ry. Co. v. West, 121 Ga. 641, 49 S. E. 711, 67 L. R. A. 701, 104 Am. St. Rep. 179; Leistritz v. American Zyl. Co., 154 Mass. 382, 28 N. E. 294; B. & O. Ry. v. Doty, 133 Fed. 866, 67 C. C. A. 38. These authorities are much in point. In the Schaub Case a brakeman left his place of duty on top of the car and went between cars to couple them. It was held he had no cause of action. In the Allen Case a young woman at work in a laundry took hold of a machine at which she worked to show a defect to the foreman. Her hand, like plaintiff's in this case, was crushed; but, as it was not her duty to do what she did, her case failed. In the Atlantic Ry. Case, the plaintiff, a boy of 15, not in the employ of the railway company, in response to the request of a brakeman to aid him in a duty he was performing, volunteered to do so and had his hand and leg...