Letanovsky v. Friedman-Shelby Shoe Co.

• Decision Date: 01 May 1911
• Citation: 157 Mo. App. 120,137 S.W. 321
• Parties: LETANOVSKY v. FRIEDMAN-SHELBY SHOE CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

137 S.W. 321

157 Mo. App. 120

LETANOVSKY v. FRIEDMAN-SHELBY SHOE CO.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

May 1, 1911.

1. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 217)—ASSUMPTION OF RISK—FEEDING DANGEROUS MACHINE—METHOD OF WORK.

One employed to pass sheets of leather through a splitting machine assumed the risk of being injured on account of his hand becoming caught by a flap on the leather, where the employer's known method of doing their work required the flaps to be left on the sheets.

2. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 217)—SAFETY OF WORK—EMPLOYER'S DUTY.

The rule requiring an employer to use ordinary care to furnish reasonably safe appliances and places of work does not restrict his right to direct the method of doing the work, so long as it is conducted lawfully, and one accepting employment with knowledge of a hazard arising from a method adopted assumes the risk thereof.

3. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 286)—DANGEROUS MACHINERY—OMISSION TO GUARD—NEGLIGENCE—JURY QUESTION.

In an action for injury to an employé while feeding sheets of leather through a splitting machine, whether omission to guard the machine was negligent held, under the evidence, for the jury.

4. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 291)—DANGEROUS MACHINERY—NEGLIGENCE—INSTRUCTIONS.

Though Rev. St. 1909, § 7828, requires certain machinery, when so placed as to be dangerous to employés, to be guarded, in an action for injury to an employé, it was error to submit an issue of a machine being "so placed" as to be dangerous without guards, where the petition did not rely thereon.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Moses N. Sale, Judge.

Action by Louis Letanovsky against Friedman-Shelby Shoe Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Watts, Dines, Gentry & Lee, for appellant. Kinealy & Kinealy, for respondent.

NORTONI, J.

This is a suit for damages accrued to plaintiff on account of personal injuries through the alleged negligence of defendant. Plaintiff recovered, and defendant prosecutes the appeal.

Defendant corporation owns and conducts a shoe factory in the city of St. Louis, and plaintiff, a mature man and experienced shoe worker, was in its employ at the time of his injury. Plaintiff had been in defendant's employ for about two months, operating the machine through which he was injured, and he worked with like machines in other factories for several years theretofore; so there is no question about his experience with the machine, nor as to his familiarity with the way to operate it. Plaintiff lost the first two joints of his two middle fingers and received an injury to both the initial and little finger on one of his hands, while engaged in passing leather through one of defendant's splitting machines. The machine is shown to be of the ordinary character employed in shoe factories for such purpose and is about three feet in width. Together with other portions thereof, not necessary to mention, it consists of two horizontal rollers about three feet long which, through their rapid revolutions, convey leather against a sharp knife situate horizontally and immediately behind the rollers, and the leather is thus split by passing it through the machine against the knife. Plaintiff's occupation at which he was engaged when injured was to feed large sheets of leather nearly or about three feet wide into the machine by placing the end of the leather between the rollers and guiding it through, to the end of splitting the same. While so engaged, plaintiff's hand became entangled with what is mentioned in the evidence as a flap on the leather which he was feeding the machine, and was thus drawn between the rollers and against the knife, which dissevered two of his fingers and injured two others. The flap on the leather which, it is said, operated in part to occasion plaintiff's injury seems to be a portion thereof which was curled up and over against the body of the sheet passing through the machine. The evidence tends to prove that nearly or about all of the sheets of leather in the rough which are passed through such machines in the process of splitting are incumbered with such flaps, probably on either the ends or sides of the sheets.

As a matter of inducement, the petition mentions the sheets of leather which plaintiff's employment required him to pass through the splitting machine, and describes the flaps thereon as above indicated. It avers, too, that such flaps on the sheets of leather render the occupation of passing them through the machine to be dangerous. After so premising, the petition sets forth two specifications of negligence on the part of defendant touching the matter of the mode of conducting the work and the machine itself. As the first breach of duty to exercise ordinary care for plaintiff's safety, it is averred that defendant, through its foreman, forbade plaintiff cutting such flaps from the sheets of leather, before they were inserted between the rollers, and required him to pass the same through the machine with the flaps thereon, which rendered the mode of performing his work dangerous and operated to entangle his hand and injure it The second breach of duty relates to defendant's...