James v. Rapides Lumber Company, Limited

• Decision Date: 18 April 1898
• Docket Number: 12,725
• Citation: 23 So. 469,50 La.Ann. 717
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: JOSEPH D. JAMES, FOR USE PAUL ANTHONY CALVIT JAMES, v. RAPIDES LUMBER COMPANY, LIMITED

23 So. 469

50 La.Ann. 717

JOSEPH D. JAMES, FOR USE PAUL ANTHONY CALVIT JAMES, v. RAPIDES LUMBER COMPANY, LIMITED

No. 12,725

Supreme Court of Louisiana

April 18, 1898

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

OPINION

ON APPLICATION FOR REHEARING.

BREAUX, J.

Three witnesses for the plaintiff, men of experience in the management of saw-mill machinery stated that there was danger, if one without experience or instruction of any [ILLEGIBLE WORD] took to work as a hand at the machine known as the trimmer.

That it is unsafe to place one at that work who is a green hand without warning or instruction. That the danger should have been explained to him; that it was an act of imprudence to call the plaintiff, who had been engaged elsewhere in the mill, and at once give him in charge the work necessary to be done at the end of the trimmer in transferring the lumber from the edger to the trimmer.

On the other hand, three witnesses for the defendant testified that the work was not as hazardous as represented; that men without experience and warning sometimes were placed to work at trimmers.

The jury and the trial judge who saw and heard the witnesses believed the former.

Great weight, it is clear, should be given to their findings as relates to the facts of the case.

It does seem that the act of the plaintiff in putting his hands on two pieces of timber, 2 x 4 (crossed one over the other), as they were about to pass the trimmer saws, was an act of the greatest imprudence; that one with the least experience or warning would not have thus exposed himself. The plaintiff, it appears, was not deficient in intelligence. Had he been made aware of the danger, it would be proper to hold that he had assumed the risk of the dangerous employment. It must have been evident to the jury he had not had sufficient opportunity to become familiar with his duties nor had he been, it appears, sufficiently instructed. It was not, the jury found, an ordinary danger. It was not, their verdict implies, a danger known to the employee, and one which he, without warning, should have appreciated. The defendant in the brief asserts, in opposition to the position that the plaintiff should have been warned and instructed before placing him at the trimmer, that the only instruction which could have been given him would have been not to put his hand on the saw, and that this would have added nothing to his knowledge.

This contention, as stated by defendant as relating to visible danger, is supported by several well considered decisions of courts of other States. From the point of view just stated they recommend themselves as eminently just and correct.

But the jury here,...