Lowe v. Fox Laundry, Cleaning & Dyeing Co.

• Decision Date: 29 June 1925
• Docket Number: No. 15320.,15320.
• Citation: 274 S.W. 857
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals
• Parties: LOWE v. FOX LAUNDRY, CLEANING & DYEING CO.

274 S.W. 857

LOWE v. FOX LAUNDRY, CLEANING & DYEING CO.

No. 15320.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

June 29, 1925.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Buchanan County; Thos. B. Allen, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by Esther Lowe against the Fox Laundry, Cleaning & Dyeing Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

John S. Boyer and Eastin & McNeely, all of St. Joseph, for appellant.

W. B. Norris and Barney E. Reilly, both of St. Joseph, for respondent.

BLAND, J.

This is an action for damages for personal injuries. Plaintiff recovered a verdict and judgment in the sum of $2,500, and defendant has appealed.

Defendant insists that its demurrer to the evidence should have been sustained. The facts show that plaintiff was injured on June 1, 1923, by having her left hand caught between the movable parts of a laundry pressing machine, resulting in her being severely burned. The pressing machine was being operated by the defendant in its laundry establishment at St. Joseph, Mo. Plaintiff was in defendant's employ. The machine was composed of a stationary bottom and a movable top, the top and bottom being padded. The top contained a steam chest, and when in use was heated to a temperature of 275 to 300 degrees. The machine was about 6 feet long and about 1½ feet wide. The top and bottom were hinged together at the back, and opened in a manner similar to a trunk. The top raised about a foot to give sufficient room between it and the bottom for placing on the bottom the clothes to be pressed. When the clothes were smoothed out by the operator and ready to be pressed, the top portion was brought down and the article pressed. The machine was operated electrically. When it was desired that the top part come down the operator pulled a button which made a contact in a switch, allowing the electricity to flow into the motor that operated the machine. When the top reached the bottom it automatically stopped. When it was desired to raise the top, the operator pushed in the button, and the top was raised, and automatically stopped upon being fully opened. The machine was installed in October previous to the injury. Originally the top was raised by the use of a handle which turned on the electricity, but in April this was changed by installing the button switch.

Plaintiff put upon the stand a number of witnesses who had operated this particular machine, who testified that it was out of order frequently. The top would come down without any manipulation of the button, at times it would not come down at all, and at other times when it came down it would lock. The operator would be required to call a mechanic to get it started. The fingers of other operators had been burned by the top unexpectedly coming down. The natural way for the top to come down was a gradual closing, but when it would come down without using the switch it came down fast or "with a bang." One witness testified that when the top came down normally it would come down gradually but fast; that "sometimes it came all right; other times it would come in jerks."

Plaintiff was regularly employed at a collar machine and in marking clothes, and had not worked upon the pressing machine but two or three times prior to the night of the injury. The regular operator of the pressing machine quit at 5 o'clock, and plaintiff, who was working extra, was placed as an extra operator on the machine. She had no knowledge concerning the mechanism of the machine, and knew nothing about it except that the foreman had told her that by pushing or pulling a button the top would be raised or lowered. About a half an hour after plaintiff started to work on the machine she had trouble with it; it locked twice, that is, after it was down she could not raise it, so she called the foreman, who released it by the use of a crank, and told her that it would be all right for her to go ahead. About five minutes thereafter she was straightening out an apron upon the lower port of the machine when suddenly, without her touching the button, the top came down upon her left hand and locked, resulting in her hand being severely burned.

There was evidence that the top would fall in this manner at times as much as three or four times in a day; sometimes it would fall only once a day. No one knew when it was going to fall. There was evidence that "the machine did not work good that morning (the day plaintiff was injured), and had not been for several days; it would go down and would not go up; that was the day before. The same day, too, they had trouble with it." When it fell on plaintiff's hand at the time in question, the foreman was called and manipulated the electric button without being able to get the top off her hand. He finally secured a crank and loosened the top. Plaintiff testified that when the top came down it came with a buzzing noise, and that when it went up after being released it went up with "a bang—buzzing noise, the way it came down." There was testimony that no one used the machine after the accident, but for three or four days thereafter defendant was engaged "in fixing it." Plaintiff and the other women operators of the machine were not familiar with its mechanism, and had nothing to do with its repairing. Plaintiff testified that the top came down "with a bang;" "that it was on her hand before she knew it." One of plaintiff's witnesses on cross-examination stated, "the motor was always out of order."

Defendant's testimony tended to show that the supporting parts of the machine were made of strong steel or iron, and the movement of the top, both up and down, was by a worm gear operated by a small motor attached to the framework of the machine. The pushing or pulling of the button started the motor in operation; which turned a cog fitted into a worm drive or gear, and attached to the end of a shaft; the effect was to move the shaft horizontally. This movement, by means of connecting levers, raised and lowered the top. Defendant's evidence further tended to show that it was not possible to lower or raise the top without moving or operating the crank shaft by means of the motor; that the only way the top could fall would be by the breaking of some rods or castings making the mechanical connection; that even then the top would not fall unless a coil spring at the back of the machine, which held the top up when open, also broke. There was no evidence that this spring broke. Defendant's testimony tended to show that if anything got out of order and the motor would stop, the top would stop descending, and that it could not fall suddenly because the spring was pulling it up, and also because of the worm drive.

Defendant's evidence tended to show that this was an approved machine, used generally throughout the country; that there was a guard around the outer part of the machine...