Hickey v. Taaffe

• Decision Date: 08 March 1887
• Citation: 105 N.Y. 26,12 N.E. 286
• Parties: HICKEY, by Guardian, etc., v. TAAFFE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

105 N.Y. 26

12 N.E. 286

HICKEY, by Guardian, etc.,

v.TAAFFE.¹

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 8, 1887.

Appeal from general term, supreme court, Second department.

Action to recover damages for personal injuries. Plaintiff had judgment below.

RUGER, C. J., and DANFORTH, J., dissenting.

Esek Cowen, for appellant.

Patrick Keady, for respondent.

PECKHAM, J.

The plaintiff was a young girl, employed by defendant in his laundry. At the time of her first coming there, in April, 1882, she was fourteen years and four months old, and was employed by the sister of defendant, who superintended that department of the work, to bunch collars and cuffs, which was a perfectly safe employment. Before going to the laundry she had never worked nor seen machinery used in a steam laundry. She remained at this employment until June 16, of the same year, when defendant's sister came to her, (as she says,) and, after telling her that the person who fed the machine in question was absent, asked her to go over to it and take her place, which she did; and she was there shown how to put the collars and cuffs through, and was told to be careful and not let any laps go through,-any ears,-that is, so that no part of the collars should lap over another part.

This machine had a platform in front of it, upon which the feeder sat in a chair, and placed the collars and cuffs which were to be put through the ironing process on a flat desk in front of her. There were two rollers at the further edge of the desk, one on top of the other. The lower one was hot enough to iron the collars as they passed through, while the upper pressed down upon it with a pressure of about two hundred pounds. The collars were fed to these rollers by the feeder; and as one collar was started in on the left side of the machine, and ‘gripped’ by the rollers, another was placed in position by the side of it, and so on until the sixth would just be taken by the rollers as the first one disappeared, and the space left vacant for another collar. There was a belt by which the machine was operated, which, however, could not be reached by the person feeding; but there was a girl at the rear or other end of the machine, where the collars came out, who started and stopped it. The heated roller is hollow, and revoves around gas jets, and is heated to such a heat that if a collar stopped on it for a minute it would have been scorched brown or burned. If a person's hand were caught between these rollers, it could not be dragged out, and the machine would have to be stopped, and the weights which pressed it down would have to be removed from the upper roller. This machine would iron about 600 dozen pieces in the course of s working day. There were no guards in front of the rollers for the purpose of preventing anything from being drawn between them.

The defendant, on his examination, said that at one time he had himself placed a lever or shifter on this machine by which to start and stop it. It was overhead on the ceiling, and it could not be reached from where the plaintiff sat, but could be handled by a cord. That lever had been off about two months at the time when the accident occurred for which this action is brought. Defendant says he found the lever was not convenient, and the old way was the easiest and safest. He says he did not take it off, as a matter of economy, because the girls used to take too much time in stopping that lever. There never was at any time a lever or shifter within reach of the platform where the feeder sat. The machine as it existed on the day of the accident was in perfect repair and condition, according to the plan upon which it was built, and it did not appear from the evidence that there was in use any machine moved by steam for ironing collars which had any other or better or safer means for stopping it, or for guarding the person who fed it.

On the sixteenth of June, when plaintiff went to work at this machine, she had never used any of the machines in the laundry. She says that no one in the factory ever instructed her as to the dangers of this machine; neither defendant nor anybody else ever gave her any such instructions. Before the plaintiff, no operator or feeder of the machine had ever been hurt, although there were several of such machines in the laundry, and they had been in use several years. One person had been injured, but she was not an operator, and had no proper business at the machine when in operation. For six weeks, or from June 16th to July 26th, the day she was injured, the plaintiff worked constantly on this machine in feeding the collars and cuffs. During this time she says defendant had talked to her about her hair being loose or too long, and he told her to keep her hair up in front, because it might get caught in the roller and be burned off. She also said she knew the rollers were so close together that they would, if they caught the hair, either draw it out of her forehead, or burn it off by the heat, and she knew this did once occur. She got her own hair caught once four or five days after she was first employed on it, and she knew then the rollers were hot enough to iron a collar, and she had always been told there was a pressure of the upper roller on the lower. She also said she knew that, if her hand was caught between the rollers of that machine, that it would be burned and crushed, and she knew that other girls had had their hair caught and burned off on the machine. As to the weight of the pressure of the upper roller upon the lower, she knew it was pressed upon or weighted with weights which she saw, and she saw the upper roller raised by means of a lever, which was operated by stooping down and making great pressure with the body on the lever, which would then raise the roller. For six week she had had the experience of working at and feeding this machine, and had obtained the knowledge above stated, when, on the twenty-sixth of July, the accident in question happened. She gives this account of the manner of its happening:

‘I commenced on the left-hand side, and commenced to put it [the collar] throught the machine. I caught a collar with an ear on it. I put my finger out to pull it out, and my hand was caught and drawn right through. The way it got caught, it was an old collar; my finger got caught in the buttonhole, and I could not get it out. The machine went quite fast. There was a lap in the ear of a stand-up collar-gentleman's collar. The button-hole part was lapped back on the collar. I put my finger out to pull it out, and my hand was caught and drawn right through. I tried to get it out. I put out my foot to push off the belting, and could not reach it.’

The girl at the other end of the machine heard the cries, and stopped the machine. The plaintiff's hand was then taken out, the upper roller having been raised, and she was taken home. She was most terribly burned and bruised, and suffered an injury of a permanent nature, and which may result in the entire loss of her hand, and perhaps arm up to the elbow.

The plaintiff commenced this action to recover for the injury, and in her complaint alleged that the defendant, ‘carelesslyand unlawfully, set the plaintiff to work on machinery which was dangerous to her life and limb without informing her of such danger, and of which she was entirely ignorant, * * * and that defendant well knew that said machinery was dangerous and unsafe; that through the gross negligence, carelessness, and wrong-doing of the defendant, * * * and without any negligence on the part of plaintiff, plaintiff's right had was caught in defendant's machinery,’ etc. The plaintiff had a verdict, which was affirmed at the general term, and the defendant appealed to this court.

The counsel for defendant, upon the argument here, very properly, as we think, from the testimony, conceded there was no question of contributory negligence in the case.

The right of the plaintiff to maintain this recovery was placed by her counsel upon three grounds: (1) The duty of defendant to furnish safe, sound, and suitable tools and machinery for the use of the plaintiff; (2) the negligence of defendant in failing to warn the plaintiff of the character of the machine, and its dangers from lack of proper appliances to stop it by the person feeding it; (3) the defendant's violation of the original contract of employment by taking her from ‘bunching’ the collars, and placing her at work feeding this dangerous machine.

1. The duty to furnish safe machinery means, of course, machinery that is safe, considering the use for which it is designed, for otherwise very little machinery could be operated. A steam-engine may be built in the best manner, of the best...