Force v. Standard Silk Co.

• Decision Date: 17 April 1908
• Citation: 160 F. 992
• Parties: FORCE v. STANDARD SILK CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

160 F. 992

FORCE v. STANDARD SILK CO.

United States Circuit Court, N.D. New York.

April 17, 1908

J. J Bixby and John H. Grant, for plaintiff.

Edward J. Schoeneck and Thomas S. Jones, for defendant.

RAY District Judge.

This action was commenced in the state court and removed to the Circuit Court of the United States, plaintiff being a citizen and resident of the state of New York, and defendant being a foreign corporation, and the amount involved over $2,000. The action was brought to recover damages alleged to have been sustained by reason of the negligence of the defendant.

Walter J. Force, the plaintiff, became 14 years of age October 1 1906. He lived at Willowvale, about 1 1/2 miles from defendant's silk mill at Washington Mills, Oneida county N.Y. Soon after he became fourteen and in the fore part of October, 1906, he went to this mill, and saw Mr. Keeley, the superintendent of the mill, and applied to him for work. He was at once employed, told to report the next Monday, which he did. He found Mr. Keeley, the superintendent, who said 'Come down stairs, and I will let another little boy learn you. ' The superintendent took the plaintiff down to the reeling room and found one Eddie Cassart, who was about 15 years old, and left plaintiff with him. Cassart told plaintiff he should clean bobbins by sandpapering them, which he did. When cleaned they were put in a box which was wheeled by plaintiff to the elevator, taken therein to another room upstairs, and left. Cassart ran the elevator and showed plaintiff how to run it. Cassart showed plaintiff how to put the boxes on and off the elevator. At the end of a week and a half Cassart went upstairs to the spinning room and became a spinner, leaving plaintiff to do the work described. There was no one in that room who gave orders to plaintiff except Bert Ottoway, who came to that room some three weeks after plaintiff commenced work there, and told him what to do, sweep up, run off belts some 8 or 10 times, and tie up a belt, and one John Brown, who told him some things to do before that. One thing he was told to do, on three occasions, was to run off belts. Plaintiff worked in that room from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. with one hour's nooning. At noon he remained in that room alone and took his dinner there. This was known to defendant's superintendent. In this room were located some 10 or 12 reeling machines, only 6 in commission, run by belts connecting with a long shaft overhead, which was run by a belt connecting with shafting in another room and thence with the engine. During this noon hour the belts to each machine were disconnected from the pulleys, but left hanging on the long overhead shaft; sometimes they dragged on the floor when thus disconnected, but usually were tied in a loop at the lower end and hitched to the machine so they would not drag.

These long shafts overhead in the same room during the noon hour were left revolving at a rapid rate. There was an abundance of evidence that belts thus hanging on a revolving shaft will sometimes 'crawl,' slowly at first, on the shaft and then wind up, in which event the ends will strike the ceiling very rapidly and make a noise. There was evidence that it was dangerous to take hold of those belts hanging on that revolving shaft as the moment there was friction, or the belts were caught in any way, they were liable to wind up quickly, and if the person having hold of them was caught thereby or entangled in any way he would be carried or hurled rapidly about the shaft. This was not an obvious danger to an inexperienced person, especially a youth. There was an abundance of room for plaintiff to do his work in cleaning bobbins without going close about the belts or machinery. He was in no danger from the belts if he attended strictly to his business of cleaning bobbins. This plaintiff had had no experience with machinery of this or any description; was unacquainted with it, and, as he claimed, had no knowledge, warnings, or instructions as to the dangers of being about or handling these belts or this machinery. He took to the superintendent a paper or papers showing his age, and his youth was obvious. That such machinery is attractive to boys of that age is a matter of common knowledge. It was described, and there was evidence given by the defendant that it did attract the plaintiff and another boy from the floor below on two or three occasions to intermeddle and experiment and play with it during the noon hour.

The claim of the plaintiff is that on the 29th day of January, 1907, he was left alone in this room in the condition described, and was about to eat his dinner when his attention was called to one of these belts at one of the machines not then in commission which he claims had wound up on the shaft, and that the loose end was striking the ceiling and making a loud noise; that he got a step ladder, put it near the flying belt and tried to catch it for the purpose of tying it up in the manner he had been told to do by Ottoway and Smith with hanging belts (not with those wound up or flying in any manner, as nothing of that kind had occurred there), when he was caught, carried about the shaft three or four times and his arm torn from his body near the shoulder joint. There was no eyewitness to this accident, but the theory of the defendant was that the belt did not wind up as described by the plaintiff but that he was intermeddling or playing or experimenting with it, as it says he had done before, and was caught and injured.

The theory upon which the complaint was framed was that, because Ottoway and Brown had told the plaintiff on the occasions mentioned to tie up the belt on its being disconnected from the pulley of the machine to stop work, it became incidentally a part of his duty to do so, and that, being allowed and permitted to be there, he, on seeing this flying belt at the noon hour, had a right to attempt to catch it and tie it up, and that, if he did so, he was acting in the line of his duty, and that being ignorant of the danger, and not having been warned or instructed by defendant or its representatives as to the danger of handling the belt, and not having gained any knowledge on the subject while there, the defendant was negligent, and that its negligence was the proximate cause of the injury received by plaintiff, and that contributory negligence cannot be imputed to the plaintiff because of his youth, immaturity, inexperience, ignorance, and lack of instruction as to those latent dangers.

The complaint was very full in charging negligence and contained the following:

'And this plaintiff was by said defendant, its officers, foremen and agents, carelessly, negligently, and wrongfully left alone, inexperienced child as he was, to work in a room of said factory where dangerous and rapidly moving machinery was in full motion, without the presence of a foreman or of any experienced or older person or of any other person; that on or about the 29th day of January, 1907, while said plaintiff was absolutely alone in a room in said factory, thus carelessly and negligently left by said defendant, its officers, foremen, and agents, where dangerous machinery was in rapid motion, and while he was with due care and caution proceeding about the duties which had been assigned him, he was caught in a belt, which had by the carelessness and negligence of the defendant, been allowed for many days to remain in a dangerous and unsafe condition, without proper guard or safety appliances, by his right arm, and carried many times around a rapidly moving shaft, his right arm torn completely off a few inches from the shoulder and his body hurled many feet to the floor, fracturing three of his ribs and causing great damage to other parts of his body, and plaintiff was caused great pain and suffering; that no one was present to give him assistance or extricate him from the belt, owing to the carelessness and negligence of defendant, and said calamity happened, and the plaintiff's right arm was thus torn off, and his ribs thus fractured, and plaintiff was caused and still experiences great pain and suffering, without any fault or negligence on his part, but solely through the carelessness and negligence of this defendant.'

The complaint also charged that the place was dangerous; that plaintiff was inexperienced and ignorant of the danger, and that he was not properly instructed or informed of the dangers; and that his want of knowledge, etc., was known to defendant. At the close of the plaintiff's evidence the court allowed the following amendment so that the allegations should conform to the proofs and cover the real cause of action, viz.:

'The Court: The plaintiff in this case may amend his complaint if he so desires, so as to allege that the defendant neglected and failed to inform and instruct the plaintiff of the danger of the machinery, or of meddling with or having to do with the machinery in the room in which he was put to work and in which the accident occurred, and that such machinery was dangerous if meddled with by an inexperienced person, and that the machinery in motion was of a character if anything did occur or happen, or whether anything particular or peculiar occurred or not, to attract children and boys inexperienced, and to induce and tempt them to meddle with it or to use it, and that defendant knew this fact or facts, and that this plaintiff, in view of the duties that had been required of him and which he had been put to do in connection with it on the occasion in question, believed, or had reason to believe, in view of what had occurred and what had been required, that it was his duty to stop the flopping, flying revolution of the band, and that in so doing and in doing what he believed to be his

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