Kirchner v. Yale University

• Decision Date: 25 June 1963
• Citation: 150 Conn. 623,192 A.2d 641
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Martin KIRCHNER v. YALE UNIVERSITY et al. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 641

192 A.2d 641

150 Conn. 623

Martin KIRCHNER v. YALE UNIVERSITY et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 25, 1963.

Dennis N. Garvey, New Haven, with whom was John W. Colleran, New Haven, for appellant (plaintiff).

Morris Tyler, New Haven, with whom was Peter C. Dorsey, New Haven, for appellees (defendants).

Before BALDWIN, C. J., and KING, MURPHY, SHEA and ALCORN, JJ. KING, Associate Justice.

The plaintiff instituted this action against Yale University, hereinafter referred to as the defendant, and Alexander Bzdyra, its admitted agent and employee, to recover damages for personal injuries. The plaintiff, when he was a student in the defendant's architectural department, sustained the injuries while he was in a woodworking shop operating a machine called a jointer. The court directed a verdict in favor of both defendants, and thereafter it denied the plaintiff's motion to set the verdict aside. The plaintiff has appealed. Counsel have made no distinction in the liability of the two defendants.

The direction of a verdict is not favored and is justified only 'if upon the evidence the jury could not reasonably and legally have reached any other conclusion than that embodied in the verdict as rendered * * * and if, had the verdict been rendered for the [other party], the evidence was so weak that it would be proper for the court to set it aside. * * *' It remains to apply this rule to the evidence in this case, 'considered in that aspect most favorable to the plaintiffs." Lurier v. Danbury Bus Corporation, 144 Conn. 544, 547, 135 A.2d 597, 599, and cases cited.

The jury might reasonably have found the following facts, a number of which were admitted in the pleadings: The jointer on which the plaintiff was injured is a device used to plane wood. The jointer is essentially a rectangular table bisected across its narrower width by rotating blades which protrude slightly from the top of the table. Wood, the under side of which is to be planed, is propelled by the operator across the whirling blades. The woodworking shop was created, and the jointer was furnished, for the use of students in the defendant's department of architecture. Bzdyra was employed by the defendant as director and supervisor of the shop and was in the shop and was acting in that capacity at the time of the accident. The plaintiff, in order to prepare some wood for use in constructing a model which was required as part of his course of architectural studies, had gone to the shop where a circular saw, a sander and the jointer in question were located. The plaintiff, as a student, had been invited to make use of the machines in the shop in the prosecution of his course in architecture. Bzdyra knew of the plaintiff's proposed use of the jointer and indeed had given the plaintiff instructions as to how to set one of the two guards with which the jointer itself was equipped. The plaintiff worked several pieces of wood through the jointer without incident, but when he attempted to pass through another piece, it became dislodged, that is, it kicked out from under the plaintiff's left hand, allowing his fingers to come into contact with the then exposed blades. His hand was severely injured. The wood which had been dislodged had been propelled through the jointer by the plaintiff by means of a push stick which had been made available by the defendant and which the plaintiff operated with his right hand. The push stick had been placed against the wood in position to push it, and the plaintiff's left hand was on the top of the wood, as it passed over the blades.

One of the specifications of negligence in the complaint charged a failure to provide necessary rules, regulations and instructions in the use of the jointer, and another charged a failure to provide a proper type of push block to be used in connection with the operation of the jointer. There was expert testimony from which the jury could find that a push stick is not designed for use with a jointer but, rather, is designed for use with a circular saw; that when using a push stick with a jointer the operator is forced to put one hand on the wood being worked; that no matter who uses a jointer certain appliances should be used to push the wood over the blades; that there is a safety tool designed for the jointer called a push block; that if a push block had been used and the wood being worked had kicked out, as was the case here, the push block, rather than the hand of the operator, would have come into contact with the blades of the jointer; that in processing wood of the relatively small size of that on which the plaintiff was working, a pubh block should have been used regardless of the condition of the jointer or the skill of the operator; and that it would be dangerous for anyone to operate the jointer without using a push block. Cf. Klenzendorf v. Shasta Union High School District, 4 Cal.App.2d 164, 166, 168, 40 P.2d 878. This evidence was properly admitted under the rule of cases such as Delmore v. Polinsky, 132 Conn. 28, 31, 42 A.2d 349.

It was the obligation of the defendants to exercise reasonable care not only to instruct and warn students in the safe and proper operation of the machines provided for their use but also to furnish and have available such appliances, if any, as would be reasonably necessary for the safe and proper use of the machines. Brigham Young University v. Lillywhite, 118 F.2d 836, 841, 843, 137 A.L.R. 598 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 314 U.S. 638, 62 S.Ct. 73, 86 L.Ed. 512; Miller v. Macalester College, 262 Minn. 418, 426, 428, 115 N.W.2d 666; note, 160 A.L.R. 250, 269; see Douglass v. Douglass, 130 Cal.App.2d 609, 613, 279 P.2d 556, 46 A.L.R.2d 1370; note, 46 A.L.R.2d 1377; see also note, 32 A.L.R.2d 1163, 1184. It is obvious that on the basis of the foregoing expert testimony presented by the plaintiff the jury could reasonably have found that a push block rather than a push stick was the proper and reasonably safe device to use in operating the jointer. Delmore v. Polinsky, supra. From other testimony, the jury could also have found that the plaintiff did not see, nor know of, a push block or any device other than the push stick, which he used to push wood through the jointer, that no...