O'Keefe v. Nat'l Folding Box & Paper Co.

• Decision Date: 08 February 1895
• Citation: 33 A. 587,66 Conn. 38
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: O'KEEFE v. NATIONAL FOLDING BOX & PAPER CO.

33 A. 587

66 Conn. 38

O'KEEFE

v. NATIONAL FOLDING BOX & PAPER CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Feb. 8, 1895.

Appeal from superior court, New Haven county; George W. Wheeler, Judge.

Action by John J. O'Keefe against the National Folding Box & Paper Company to recover for personal injuries. From a judgment sustaining a demurrer to the complaint, plaintiff appeals. No error.

Jacob P. Goodhart, for appellant.

James T. Moran, for appellee.

BALDWIN, J. The complaint alleges that the plaintiff, who was but 19 years old, while in the employment of the defendant as a feeder of a folding press, supplying it with paper or pasteboard, was directed temporarily to leave that employment, and was negligently put to work in placing colored paper, saturated with poison, into a box greatly heated with steam, and then taking it out again, when softened, for more easy folding; that he did not know the paper was poisoned, or of the effect upon his health that his so handling it would have; that the steam and beat of the box caused the poison to exhale and mingle with the steam, which poisoned steam the plaintiff was compelled to breathe while at the work; that the heat also caused him to perspire very freely, and the poison on and in the paper which he was compelled to handle worked into his whole body, and became absorbed into his system; that such a mode of treating colored paper in a heated box was not customary or usual in the business of the defendant, and the defendant knew, or ought to have known, the effect it might have on the plaintiff; that he knew nothing of the poisonous nature of the paper, nor of its natural effect when so treated, and the defendant gave him no notice of its poisonous nature, or of the dangerous effects that might result from the work; that the defendant negligently kept him at the work continuously on each day from 10:30 a. m. on April 7th to noon on April 10th; that on April 10th he began to feel the effects of the poison; and that, in consequence of the work he thus did, through the negligence of the defendant, his body became saturated with poison, and swollen, his sight nearly extinct, and his health destroyed for life.

The repeated charges of negligence thus made are of no avail unless supported by averments of facts sufficient to show in what manner the defendant failed to perform its obligations to the plaintiff. He had been employed to feed a folding press. The defendant determined to soften some colored paper, which could not easily be folded, by putting it in a heated steam box. This was not a customary or usual process in its factory. The paper in question was saturated with poison. How this occurred is not alleged. It may have been the result of some accident, after the paper was made; it may have been due to the process of manufacture, or the materials employed. The plaintiff did not know that the paper was poisoned, and he does not allege that the defendant knew of it. The court may properly take judicial notice that some colored paper is dyed with poisonous substances, but it is equally bound to take judicial notice that this is not true of all colored paper. The injury to the plaintiff was due solely to the presence of the poison in the paper. He does not allege, and the court cannot assume, that there is any danger to health from softening colored paper which is not poisoned, in a steam box. A master owes his servant the duty of exercising reasonable care to provide him with a reasonably safe place in which to work, and reasonably safe appliances and instrumentalities with which to work. McElligott v. Randolph, 61 Conn. 157, 22 Atl. 1094. If he employs him in what he knows or...