Lack Malleable Iron Co. v. Graham

• Decision Date: 27 February 1912
• Citation: 147 Ky. 161,143 S.W. 1016
• Parties: LACK MALLEABLE IRON CO. v. GRAHAM.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

143 S.W. 1016

147 Ky. 161

LACK MALLEABLE IRON CO. v. GRAHAM.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

February 27, 1912

Appeal from Circuit Court, McCracken County.

Action by John Graham against the Lack Malleable Iron Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Wheeler & Hughes, for appellant.

Hendrick & Crice and Frank Burns, for appellee.

LASSING J.

On the 2d of September, 1910, while engaged as a molder in the plant of the Lack Malleable Iron Company, in the city of Paducah John Graham had his left foot and the toes thereof seriously burned and injured by coming in contact with molten iron. Conceiving that his injury was due to negligence on the part of his employers in not furnishing him reasonably safe machinery with which to do the work assigned him, he instituted a suit for damages. The company denied liability and pleaded that the injury was the result of the plaintiff's own negligence. Upon a trial before a jury the plaintiff recovered a verdict for $2,500.

The defendant appeals and seeks a reversal upon four grounds "First, that the verdict is flagrantly against the evidence and is grossly excessive; second, that there is no substantial evidence showing that the injury is permanent third, that, as the evidence for plaintiff shows that the injury may have resulted from one of several causes, only one of which was, under plaintiff's evidence, the result of defendant's alleged negligence, the court should have instructed the jury to find for the defendant; and, fourth, that the instructions as given were erroneous and highly prejudicial.

The particular act of negligence relied upon in the petition is that the defendant furnished to the plaintiff a defective "match board," and that as a result the molds for a clevice made from said match board were defective. While plaintiff was pouring the molten iron into one of said molds, it burst, and the molten iron ran therefrom onto his foot, between the great toe and the second toe, and burned him, to his damage in the amount sued for.

The negligence relied upon by the defendant to defeat plaintiff's recovery is that, when he discovered that the mold was bursting and the molten iron running therefrom, he attempted to push or shove loose sand into the crevice with his foot, and in this way brought his foot in contact with the molten iron, and that, but for such act on his part, he would not have been injured.

A description of the character of work in which he was engaged and the tools and machinery with which he was required to work is taken from appellant's brief. A match board is a preparation of sand and some kind of oil. It is laid in a thin wooden box, the rim around the box being called a flask. The sand and oil gradually harden. While it is soft or in a pliable condition, a brass tool is laid in the soft sand exactly one-half the thickness of the tool to be manufactured. When the casting of the brass tool is to be produced, wet sand is spread over the match board, which results in leaving in the sand the half of the impression of the tool to be produced. The same process is repeated and the two halves of the tool impression in the sand, being placed one above the other, make the "mold." Molten iron poured through a hole in this square mold of sand results in filling the tool impression and ultimately produces the desired shaped tool. It is the duty of the molder to make his own molds from a match board furnished him by the pattern maker of the factory. He selects and wets his own sand and pours his own molds. His helper is called a shifter. The molder makes a great number of molds and places them in parallel lines through the portion of the factory devoted to molding. Each aggregation of molds is called a "floor," and when the furnace runs the molder takes the molten iron in a ladle having a handle about three and a half or four feet long and pours along the parallel lines of molds. The shifter, after the molder has poured three molds, pulls them out of the way so that he may with more convenience proceed to the next batch of molds.

On the day of the injury, after a floor of molds had been laid, and while appellee was in the act of filling them, the mold nearest his left foot burst and the molten iron ran upon and into his shoe and severely burned his foot, and particularly the toes thereof. There can be no question from the evidence but what he was severely injured, and it is not contended for appellant that the proof did not warrant the submission of the case to the jury, unless, because the evidence shows that the bursting of this mold may have been due to any one of several causes, the court should have instructed the jury to find for the defendant, on the ground that it was not definitely shown that the bursting was due to any negligence on the part of the defendant.

There would be some plausibility in this contention if the evidence did not show that plaintiff had made complaint to his employers that this match board with which he was required to work was defective in its construction, and that the defects therein were causing his molds to burst; that, relying upon the promise of his employer to remedy the defect or supply him with a new match board, he continued to work, and, while thus...