Jacko v. Am. Tube & Stamping Co.

• Decision Date: 02 June 1916
• Citation: Jacko v. Am. Tube & Stamping Co., 97 A. 755, 90 Conn. 523 (Conn. 1916)
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: JACKO v. AMERICAN TUBE & STAMPING CO.

97 A. 755

90 Conn. 523

JACKO

v. AMERICAN TUBE & STAMPING CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 2, 1916.

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Edwin B. Gager, Judge.

Action by Frank Jacko against the American Tube & Stamping Company. From a refusal to set aside judgment of nonsuit, plaintiff appeals. No error.

From the evidence the following facts might reasonably have been found:

The plaintiff was injured while working in the defendant's shop. The building was three stories in height, each being some twelve to fifteen feet between floors and having windows on the two sides and one end. Each floor was without partitions. A freight platform elevator for the use of the employés in their work ran from the first to the upper floor, and was in use much of the time. The elevator shaft was located against the wall in the center of the end of the shop which had no windows, and extended out about eleven feet into the shop, and was about seven feet wide. At this point the shop is not well lighted, although there is, in addition to the windows on the three sides, an electric light over the timekeeper's desk which stands but a few feet from the elevator entrance. The shaft was uninclosed except on the end next to the wall. On the two upper floors it was guarded on its two sides by a railing 4 feet to 4 1/2 feet high and on its front or entrance end by a gate of the same height. The elevator itself was of the uninclosed platform kind with an iron frame extending up the middle of each side to a point over its center where the lifting cable was attached. This cable, when the elevator was at the bottom, extended down through the center of the shaft. Another cable for the operation of the elevator was located in a corner of the shaft a few inches from the front and entrance gate. There was no call bell, the one which had originally been installed having long been out of order and unused. The only available means of summoning the elevatorman were by calling down the shaft or by shaking the operating cable. The former was usually employed, especially when the elevator was below the floor at which its presence was desired. It was commonly stationed at the first floor when not in use.

The plaintiff, a young man of more than a year's shop experience, about one-half of which was in a shop where there was an elevator, had been employed by the defendant about two months at work on the first floor of the defendant's shop. After the first week of such employment, his duties had necessitated his going twice daily to the stockroom located on the second floor with a truck to procure working material. He used the elevator going and coming. About 2 o'clock in the afternoon of the day he was injured, he had gone to the stockroom with the truck, taken on his load, arid...