Fickett v. Lisbon Falls Fibre Co.

• Decision Date: 22 January 1898
• Citation: 91 Me. 268,39 A. 996
• Parties: FICKETT v. LISBON FALLS FIBRE CO.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

39 A. 996

91 Me. 268

FICKETT

v. LISBON FALLS FIBRE CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 22, 1898.

(Official.)

Action by John E. Fickett against the Lisbon Falls Fibre Company to recover for personal injuries. Verdict for plaintiff. Motion to set it aside. Overruled.

H. W. Oakes, for plaintiff.

J. W. Symonds, D. W. Snow, and C. S. Cook, for defendant.

FOSTER, J. The plaintiff recovered a verdict of $2,037.50 for personal injuries received by him while in the defendant's employment. The defendant asks this court, upon motion in the usual form, to set that verdict aside.

The plaintiff's duty was to enter the blow-pits, after the pulp was cooked and blown into these pits from the digesters, and there, by means of large hose, wash down the pulp. It was in one of these blowpits that the plaintiff received the injuries of which he complains.

In order to understand just how the plaintiff got hurt. It is necessary to state something of the process by which the pulp is manufactured.

The wood, which is cut into small chips, is placed in large digesters, where it is cooked in steam and sulphurous acid from 10 to 18 hours. After being cooked, the pulp is discharged or blown out by means of a valve near the bottom of the digester, through a pipe 7 inches in diameter and 22 feet in length, known as the blowpipe, Into the blow-pit. The pulp, mixed with hot water and acid, leaves the blowpipe with great force, and strikes an iron plate upon the side of the pit opposite the end of the pipe, and is thus broken up and distributed throughout and over all parts of the pit. After being discharged into this, the pulp remains until cool, about two hours being required for that purpose. Cold water is thrown upon the pulp as soon as discharged into the pit by means of sprinklers for the purpose of cooling and cleansing it of acid. After it is cooled sufficiently the pulp is washed, by the use of water, from the pit into the stuff chest below, where it remains until needed for the next process.

The blowpit in which the plaintiff was injured was a small room stoutly constructed of planks, but large enough to hold two cooks of pulp. There was an entrance door in the side of the pit opening from the room in which the digester was located. Along the inside of the pit was a plank walk, about 2 feet wide, resting on brackets about 4 1/2 feet from the floor of the pit, upon which the workmen stood while washing the pulp from the pit to the stuff chest. Upon and across this plank walk, and about seven feet to the right of the entrance door, was the iron blowpipe. Just beyond the blowpipe was a lever which was raised for the purpose of letting water into the pit, after the pulp had sufficiently cooled, to aid in washing it into the stuff chest.

Upon the morning the plaintiff was injured, a bolt in the valve near the bottom of the digester that furnished the pulp for the pit in question was broken, allowing a portion of the valve to drop on one side a very little, and the effect of this was to permit the escape of steam through the blowpipe into the blowpit under a pressure of 80 pounds to the inch, which pressure continued until it was reduced by shutting off the steam from the digester. This injury to the valve also allowed the hot acid to flow into the pit, and, as the evidence shows, a pool was formed under the end of the blowpipe.

The plaintiff claims that, having no knowledge of any injury to the valve, and as was his duty, he entered the blowpit in order to wash the pulp, and was proceeding along the plank walk to hoist the slide at the other end of it, and that when he reached the end of the blowpipe he was, by force of the steam escaping from it, blown off into the hot pulp and acid, and thereby received severe scalds and burns upon his legs and arms.

The defense sets up negligence on the part of the plaintiff, and asserts that he went into the pit after standing by the valve, on his way to the pit, and learning that there was trouble with it; that when he went into the pit he disobeyed one of the rules of the defendant company in not shoveling off the pulp from the walk before commencing his work of washing; and that he walked across the plank into the pulp in the blowpit, then into the pool of acid, and so received his injuries.

But we do not feel, from a careful examination of all the evidence, that these contentions on the part of the defense are sustained. To be sure, there was more or less conflict in the evidence on these several position?., but we see no reason for saying the jury must have erred in deciding in favor of the plaintiff. From the plaintiff's statement it appears that on that morning he went to the mill about 7 o'clock, rang in his registry, inquired what room he should go into, and was told to go into No. 3; and then he went back, changed his clothes, took down the...