Hale v. Cheney

• Decision Date: 02 June 1893
• Citation: 34 N.E. 255,159 Mass. 268
• Parties: HALE v. CHENEY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

159 Mass. 268

34 N.E. 255

HALE v. CHENEY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

June 2, 1893

COUNSEL

C.S. Lilley, for plaintiff.

N.D Pratt and E.B. Quinn, for defendant.

OPINION

LATHROP, J.

This is an action at common law, in which the plaintiff seeks to recover for personal injuries sustained by him while in the defendant's employ. The case comes before us on the defendant's exceptions to the refusal of the judge who presided in the court below to rule that the plaintiff had failed to show that he was in the exercise of due care when injured, or that the defendant's machinery was unsuitably placed, defective, and dangerous. The defendant was a manufacturer of boxes. He occupied a room 78 feet long and 38 feet wide, in which were about 15 machines. Power was furnished from an engine in an adjoining room, connected with an overhead shaft. There was also a horizontal shaft, 12 feet long, a foot above the floor, resting on bearings at each end. Power was communicated to this shaft by a belt from the upper shaft. To prevent longitudinal vibration of the lower shaft, an iron collar was fastened to one end of it by a set screw, the end of which projected half an inch outside the collar. The evidence was uncontradicted that such shafts near the floor were common and proper methods of distributing power to the machinery, and that collars with projecting screw heads or nuts, similar in all respects to those used by the defendant, were in ordinary and common use, and were preferable to any other known device for preventing longitudinal vibration. It further appeared that a collar could be secured to a shaft without a projecting screw or nut. At the end of the shaft was an upright post, two inches by four inches, extending from the bearing in which that end of the shaft rested to the ceiling of the room. The set screw was within three inches of the post. The object of the post was to hold the bearing in place, and to protect any one from getting onto the pulley, belt, and shaft. The plaintiff, at the time of the accident, was a boy nearly 16 years old, and appeared to be, as the exceptions recite, of ordinary intelligence. He had attended a commercial college "and was a bright, intelligent boy." There was evidence that "he was not a very careful boy around machinery;" that "he would get too near the machines, and would not, apparently, know where he was." The plaintiff had been in the defendant's employ three months, doing odd jobs about the shop. He had worked on a machine at different times, equal in all to three or four days. On the day of the accident he was working on a machine, the nearest part of which was five feet and four inches from the end of the shaft where the collar was. On the other side of the shaft, and about the same distance from it, was another machine, at which one Bernier was at work. While at work the plaintiff had occasion to pass from his machine to hand some work to Bernier. At least, we must assume that the jury would have been warranted in finding this from...