Kenney v. Hingham Cordage Co.

• Decision Date: 19 May 1897
• Citation: 47 N.E. 117,168 Mass. 278
• Parties: KENNEY v. HINGHAM CORDAGE CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

168 Mass. 278

47 N.E. 117

KENNEY v. HINGHAM CORDAGE CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 19, 1897

COUNSEL

P.B. Kiernan, for plaintiff.

R.W Nason and T.W. Proctor, for defendant.

OPINION

MORTON J.

The space in which the plaintiff worked was narrow, and there was danger, which might have been avoided by boxing the pulleys and belt, that such an accident as occurred to the plaintiff might happen. But nevertheless we think that the risk was an obvious one, and that the plaintiff must be held to have assumed it. At the time of the injury she was 23 years of age, and, for aught that appears, was of average intelligence, and before entering defendant's employment had worked for four years for the Suffolk Cordage Company in Chelsea, doing the same kind of work which she was doing for the defendant when she was hurt. Though the machines of the Suffolk Company differed in some respects from those of the defendant, the machines of the two companies resembled each other in their general character and operation, so that the plaintiff cannot be regarded as an inexperienced person set to work on machinery with which she was unacquainted. The narrowness of the space between the machines was obvious to any one. And the plaintiff's questions to the superintendent before she went to work showed that she observed it, and also the possible danger from it and from the belt. The answers of the superintendent that he did not think that the space was too narrow, and that there was no danger and that "it [the belt] was perfectly safe," and that "they [the machines] were just as safe as the machinery at Chelsea was," could not operate, six weeks or more after, to relieve the plaintiff from the assumption of risks which then, at least, were, or should have been obvious to her, whatever might have been the result if the accident had occurred immediately upon or soon after her entering defendant's service, and while it naturally might be supposed that she was relying to some extent on the answers of the superintendent. See Haley v. Case, 142 Mass. 316, 7 N.E. 877. It appeared that the belt in which the plaintiff's clothes were caught was a cross belt, and that cross belts are more dangerous than straight belts; and the plaintiff testified that she had never seen a cross belt before she went to work for defendant, and that until the accident she "did not know there was any danger or anything in the way of machinery behind that clothing could be caught in"; but she also testified: "I worked on the same machine I was hurt on every working day from August 15th till I was hurt [which was October 10th]. *** Had seen the belt and pulley. Such belts and pulleys were on all the machines there. *** I knew the belt was there. Had been between those machines every working day from 15th of August to 10th of October. *** Nothing different that day from any other. Knew the machine was running behind me when I stepped in. *** There was nothing about the belt and pulleys I could not have seen if I had looked for them, and I knew the belt was there." It thus appeared from the plaintiff's testimony that there was nothing about the machines, or their position, or the belts and pulleys, which she did not know, or might not have known if she had looked. In other words, the risks were all...