Hale v. Rocky Mount Mills

• Decision Date: 12 September 1923
• Docket Number: 62.
• Citation: Hale v. Rocky Mount Mills, 186 N. C. 49, 118 S. E. 799 (N.C. 1923)
• Parties: HALE v. ROCKY MOUNT MILLS.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

118 S.E. 799

186 N.C. 49

HALE v. ROCKY MOUNT MILLS.

No. 62.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

September 12, 1923

Appeal from Superior Court, Nash County; Kerr, Judge.

Action by J. H. Hale against the Rocky Mount Mills. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. No error.

Exceptions to judge's statement of parties' contentions in the charge must be made before verdict.

The plaintiff was an employee of the defendant and was injured while cleaning out a machine known as the "Garnet Hard Waste Machine," a very large machine through which lint cotton was carried.

The plaintiff's duties required him to clean the screens at least twice a day. The machine was composed of three sections, each section containing a beater and a screen. The beater was a rapidly revolving cylinder on which there were sharp pins. This caught the cotton, separated it, and a draft of air threw it on the screens from which it passed into another section. These screens were operated by a belt and the beater by a different belt. This was a nearly new machine, having been installed not more than a year before the plaintiff was injured.

At the time of his injury, the plaintiff was 58 years of age, and had worked for the defendant about 6 years, but not in connection with this machine, which was new work to him. There was a belt shifter which controlled the screen and the moving platform, and another belt which controlled the beater.

In order to clean the screen, the plaintiff would open a glass door, insert his hand and pull the waste cotton off of the screen and out of the machine. Before operating the machine at which he was injured, the plaintiff had worked in the card room. He knew nothing about operating this machine until about two months before he was injured. He testified that Moore, who was overseer and assistant superintendent of the mill, sent him to one Dillard Ellis who was operating the machine, to take Ellis' job and send him up stairs in the mill for other work. The plaintiff had had no experience or instruction in the operation of this machine The witness testified as to the manner in which he was injured:

"I stopped the screens. They do not stop together and then I went around and threw the beater loose and went out and talked to my brother--I suppose 5 or 10 minutes, and then went back and went to cleaning out the screens as I was told to do. If the waste gets in where it runs under the lint, it will cause the machine to burst, and it did burst one time. Some of the waste got caught on my fingers and jerked me down in it. The place

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