Henry v. Indus. Comm'n

• Decision Date: 16 June 1920
• Docket Number: No. 13151.,13151.
• Citation: 293 Ill. 491,127 N.E. 714
• Parties: HENRY v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

293 Ill. 491

127 N.E. 714

HENRY

v.INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.

No. 13151.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 16, 1920.

Error to Circuit Court, Cook County; Oscar M. Torrison, Judge.

Proceeding under Workmen's Compensation Act by Abe Grossman, opposed by Henry Henry, employer. Award by the Industrial Commission was confirmed, and the employer brings error.

Judgment reversed and of Industrial Commission quashed.

Carter, J., dissenting.

William A. Jennings, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Shaeffer & Foster, of Chicago, for defendant in error.

DUNN, J.

Abe Grossman, a young man 18 years old, was injured while working for the plaintiff in error on the first day of his employment, October 9, 1918. On his application the Industrial Commission made an award of compensation to him, which the circuit court of Cook county confirmed. A writ of error to the circuit court has been allowed.

The only question is whether the injury to the claimant arose out of and in the course of his employment. He was employed to do punch press work, and was put to work by the foreman on a machine called a ‘kicker,’ which was operated by foot power and shaped pieces of tin used in the making of tin boxes in forms about four inches long, by turning up about a thirty-second of an inch at the edges. Two other machines in the room where the claimant was put to work were also used in the making of the boxes, both of which were power-driven. The first of these (the cutting machine) punched the blanks for making the boxes out of strips of tin three or four feet long. The second was a forming press, which formed the boxes. This machine was guarded so that any one could run it, whether experienced or not, without any danger of getting hurt. It was the former machine by which the claimant was injured. This machine was not so strongly guarded as the other, was dangerous, and required care on the part of the operator to avoid injury.

The claimant testified that he worked on the press the foreman told him to work at about an hour, and completed all the work there was to be done on the kicker before he left it. He did not ask for more work to do on the kicker, but a young fellow whose name he did not know put him to work on the forming press and showed him how to run it. This young man worked near him on the kicker, which the foreman had told the claimant to work on. Claimant worked on the forming press until noon and about three hours in the afternoon. The foreman came in and saw him working on this press, but did not say anything to him. About 4 o'clock the claimant had run out of work on the forming press, and the other young man told him to work on the cutting machine. Soon after he began working on this machine the accident occurred, by which the claimant's hand was caught in the machine and crushed, so that the fingers had to be amputated. He was warned by the other employés as to the dangerous character of the machine. The foreman...