Fountaine v. Wampanoag Mills
| Decision Date | 28 November 1905 |
| Citation | 189 Mass. 498,75 N.E. 738 |
| Parties | FOUNTAINE v. WAMPANOAG MILLS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
J. W. & C. R. Cummings, for plaintiff.
Richd. P. Borden and Robt. C. Davis, for defendant.
The plaintiff was employed by the defendant as a ring spinner and was injured while engaged in cleaning certain exposed gears on one end of the spinning frame upon which she was at work. She offered evidence tending to show that she had stopped the frame by moving the belt which operated it from the tight to the loose pulley, by means of a shipper at the south end of the frame, and then walked the length of the frame, some 20 feet, to the north end, where the gears were situated; that when she reached the gears the frame was stopped and she began to clean them; that just after she began to clean the gears the frame started of itself, and her hand was caught in the gears and injured. It was her duty to clean these gears, and the duty of taking care of the shifting apparatus which moved the belt and stopped or started the frame did not rest upon the plaintiff, but on the second and third hands and the overseer. There was evidence that in the six or seven months before the accident the frame had started of itself 16 times while the plaintiff was not there, and that other similar frames also had started of themselves. The spinning frame was of the Marvel & Davol make, and the shipper was a Marvel & Davol shipper. The plaintiff put in evidence that this kind of frame had not been made in 28 years, and that the life of a shipper substantially like this is about 20 years. There was evidence that this shipper had become loose some months before the accident, that the bottom bolt had become worn, and that the nut of this bolt had worked off by reason of the shaking of the machine, and had been replaced occasionally, but would work loose in three weeks or thereabouts. Edmond Gosselin the defendant's third hand at the time of the accident testified that he examined the shipper after the accident and found nothing about it, only that the shipper was loose, that the whole of it was loose, and that the looseness was caused by the bottom bolt being worn out; that he had charge of the belt and pulleys, and over him was the second hand and over him the overseer; that he had put the belt on about two weeks before the accident; that at the time of the accident the belt was not cut very straight, it was cut a little crooked, not square; that he took both ends and put them together and hammered the clasp in, and he illustrated, by means of two hooks, how he brought the ends of the belt together. On cross-examination he testified that he found this bolt on the floor four weeks after the accident; that he put it back and tightened it, and it was all right to use for a while; that the belt was like all other belts in the room, and he saw nothing the matter with it. Stephen Myolt testified that six months before the accident he was third hand of the room in which the plaintiff was hurt. Evidence having been put in that there had been no change of the starting or stopping apparatus of the frame in the meantime, he further testified that he then knew of the frame starting of itself, that he examined it, and found that the shipper was loose and worn and the bottom bolt loose. On cross-examination he said that the frame started of itself because the nut came off; that he hammered in the bolt so as to prevent this; that the nut worked loose by the shaking and the frame again started of itself; that the machine would not start of itself unless there was trouble with the bolt; and that he thought the shipper and the bolt were both wrong. One Dailey also testified that, with a belt cut crooked and fastened in the manner described by Gosselin, there would be a likelihood of the machine starting of itself; and there was other evidence that there should have been a turned stud instead of the bottom bolt on the shipper; that if the lower nut or bolt on the shipper was worn the shipper would be loose; that such a shipper would not be suitable; that there would be a tendency to start the machine; and that the tendency of a loose nut or bolt would be to shift the belt from the loose to the tight pulley and cause the frame to start.
The first question that arises is on an exception to the exclusion of evidence. The plaintiff testified that, while she was at work in the spinning room, a frame like that...
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