Moulton v. Gage

• Decision Date: 09 January 1885
• Citation: 138 Mass. 390
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: John T. Moulton v. Charles O. Gage & another

138 Mass. 390

John T. Moulton v. Charles O. Gage & another

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

January 9, 1885

Argued November 13, 1884. [Syllabus Material]

Suffolk.

Tort for personal injuries alleged to have been received by the plaintiff while in the defendants' employ, through the alleged negligence of the defendants, in failing to furnish safe and proper means and appliances for doing the work. Trial in the Superior Court, before Mason, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, in substance as follows:

It was admitted that the plaintiff was employed by the defendants at the time of the alleged injury; and that the buildings means, and appliances for doing the work were owned furnished, and operated by the defendants.

The plaintiff introduced evidence tending to show that he was set to work by the defendants upon certain ways or runs leading from an elevator to certain ice-houses situated at Spy Pond in Arlington; that said runs or ways consisted of a series of wooden tracks laid on transverse timbers, over which tracks ice was passed from the elevator to the ice-houses, and of wooden plankings or platforms, five feet and six inches wide, on either side of said tracks, upon which platforms the men engaged in conducting the ice from the elevator to the ice-houses customarily stood; that said ways or runs were arranged one above another to the height of five stories, and were slightly inclined towards the ice-houses; that the wooden platforms described were protected on one side by railings at the outer edge, but on the other side there were no railings or other protection at the time of the accident, except upright posts about eighteen feet apart.

The absence of such railings or other protection constituted the defect complained of, and the accident, consisted in the plaintiff's falling from the platform at the second story of the run on the side where there was no railing or other protection, except as above stated, a distance of fourteen feet, upon blocks of ice at the surface of the pond below, by which fall the evidence tended to show that he sustained severe and permanent injuries.

It appeared that, in performing the labor of storing ice, the blocks of ice were raised from the surface of the pond by an apparatus in the elevator building operated by steam power and were passed rapidly in close succession down the track in the way or run to the ice-houses; that men were stationed at intervals upon the platforms, with proper implements to push the ice in its course, or retard it when moving too fast, and that this was a part of the plaintiff's duty; that the men so employed, including the plaintiff, ordinarily stood close up to the track upon which the ice ran, and guided the ice in its course by means of ice-hooks; that occasionally gluts or jams of ice would occur upon the track, generally occasioned by the breaking of a block of ice, thus stopping the course of the ice on the track; that, on the occurrence of such gluts or jams, it was the duty of the men at work upon the run to go as speedily as possible to the point where the jam occurred and relieve the jam by removing from the track and pushing from the platform the broken block, and the plaintiff, when he commenced work for the defendants, received...