Midland Coal Co. v. Rucker's Admr.
| Decision Date | 01 December 1925 |
| Citation | 211 Ky. 582 |
| Parties | Midland Coal Company of Olive Hill v. Rucker's Administrator. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
2. Master and Servant — Evidence Held to Show Inexperienced Coal Miner's Death was Due to Poisonous Gases, and Not Compensable. — Evidence that inexperienced coal miner had been suffering more or less from poisonous gases for two weeks prior to his death held sufficient to warrant jury in concluding that death resulted from accumulated poisons inhaled, and was not sudden and unexplained, or unexplainable, so as to limit remedy to that under Workmen's Compensation Act.
Appeal from Carter Circuit Court.
THEOBOLD & THEOBOLD for appellant.
DYSARD & MILLER and WAUGH & HOWERTON for appellee.
Affirming.
The administrator of Rucker, who lost his life in the mines of appellant company, instituted this action in the Carter circuit court and recovered judgment against the company for $2,500.00 for death of his intestate by bad air, and this appeal is prosecuted by the coal company to reverse the judgment. Rucker, an inexperienced coal miner about thirty years of age, was employed by the company and put to work with his brother, also inexperienced, in a room of its mine near an old abandoned mine from which, the evidence shows, came unwholesome gases into the working place of the deceased. The evidence further shows, without contradiction, that the mine of appellant company, a rather large one, was not properly ventilated, there being no forcing or suction fans, and the furnace which was generally employed for drawing air into the working places was not heated and in operation on the day of the death of Rucker. It is also in evidence that part of the brattice near the working place of deceased was down; that there was no ventilation save such as naturally came into the mines; that the coal was mined by and shot with powder or dynamite which made smoke, and that on the evening before the death of Rucker a great number of shots were fired in the mine, some of them in Rucker's room, and that room as well as other parts of the mines was filled, more or less, with powder smoke and other gases. The evidence also goes to show that Rucker was a stout, able-bodied young man before he began to work in the mines, about two weeks before his death; that on different days during his employment in the mines he complained of headache and was made sick and vomited; that his brother, who worked in the same room with him, was made sick and weak from the noxious gases in their working place; that other employes engaged in like service in the mine were made sick also during the same period, and only a short time before Rucker's death; that on a day immediately before his death Rucker came out of the mine sick and dizzy and went to the home of his father and mother, where he lay down on the back porch, claiming he had vomited and was unable to eat his supper. On the morning of his death he and his brother went to work in the mine and had loaded four mine cars and pushed them from the room to the entry; that the air was bad...
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