Musbach v. Wis. Chair Co.

• Decision Date: 30 October 1900
• Citation: 108 Wis. 57,84 N.W. 36
• Parties: MUSBACH v. WISCONSIN CHAIR CO.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

108 Wis. 57

84 N.W. 36

MUSBACH

v.WISCONSIN CHAIR CO.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Oct. 30, 1900.

Appeal from circuit court, Ozaukee county; James J. Dick, Judge.

Action by Joseph Musbach, by his guardian ad litem, against the Wisconsin Chair Company.From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, and from an order denying a new trial, defendant appeals.Reversed.

Action to recover for personal injuries suffered by the plaintiff from an explosion of gasoline gas while he, as an employé, was operating an embossing machine; he then being about 19 years of age, and having been employed in the same capacity for about 4 months.The building in which the explosion took place was about 28 feet long north and south, by 16 feet wide, a single story, eaves 10 feet from the floor, constructed of brick.Underneath was a space or basement inclosed by the foundation walls, some 20 inches deep, having a single opening at the south end, about 18 inches square.The floor was double, of matched flooring, and practically air-tight, except that it was perforated by two 3/8-inch pipes for carrying gasoline, and two 1 3/4-inch pipes for carrying steam, and a trapdoor.The holes through which the pipes passed were just large enough to permit them to pass through easily.The trapdoor rested by its own weight upon the joists, leaving slight cracks or interstices around it.At the south end of the building, and outside, was maintained a seven-gallon tank of gasoline, from which a 3/8-inch horizontal pipe passed through the basement northward, under the floor.Some 10 feet from the south end of the building was the first embossing machine, and 2 feet beyond that the second.From the horizontal gasoline pipe in the basement vertical 3/8-inch pipes passed upward along the side of each of these machines, and turned at about 8 feet from the floor, with a goose-neck returning to near the plates of the machine, some 3 or 4 feet from the floor.Within the same building was an air pump, which was connected with the tank outside by another pipe, so that by pumping air into the tank, up to about 15 pounds pressure, the gasoline was forced through the horizontal pipe, and up through the vertical ones and the goose-necks, to a burner at the end of each goose-neck.These burners were equipped with a valve to permit or prevent the flow of gasoline, and were used to heat metal dies to high temperature for embossing wood.Ordinarily, one pumping would suffice to maintain pressure for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.The building had four windows and a large door.The plaintiff and one Wolf were engaged as the night shifts in the operation of these embossing machines, which consisted in sliding pieces of wood through between a roller and this heated die, whereby figures were embossed on the wood.In order to heat the die, the burner above mentioned had to be first withdrawn from a mandrel or sleeve, and lighted, and replaced in the sleeve.To do this, the 3/8-inch pipe, bent over in a goose-neck, was supposed to furnish sufficient elasticity; but there is some evidence to establish that the operation was not always accomplished merely by bending the pipe, but that it resulted in turning the vertical pipe in its joint below the floor.The process of heating the die occupied perhaps 20 minutes.Then the flow of gasoline was properly turned off by the valve above mentioned.The die would retain sufficient heat for perhaps half an hour, when the process of heating would have to be repeated.It was not infrequent that there was some spilling of gasoline at the time of turning it on and lighting it, nor was it infrequent that the operators of the machines omitted to fully turn off the gasoline when extinguished, whereby a dripping would result.Plaintiff testifies that he never was guilty of such omission, but knew that his co-employé Wolf frequently was, which Wolf also testifies.On July 2, 1897, at half past 1 or 2 in the afternoon, it was noticed by the day men that the vertical pipe supplying the southmost embossing machine was loose in its joint, and it was also noticed that the pressure gauge on the air pump ran down more rapidly than usual, and independently of the consumption of gasoline at the burners, from which resulted inference of a leak in the system somewhere.A man by the name of Anderson, who seems to have had no particular duties, but whose trade involved pipe fittings, was called, and attempted to tighten the vertical pipe.Not succeeding in getting it as tight as he liked, he took it out of the joint entirely, and covered it with white lead, and then screwed it back, and pinched it in tight with a wrench.This, however, did not stop, or materially diminish, the escape of either air or gasoline, indicated by the pressure gauge.He therefore examined the valves in the air pump, but found nothing to indicate defect there, and seems to have given it up as a job beyond him.The loss of pressure was not so great at that time but that work could continue.Later, perhaps at about 4 o'clock, the running down of the pressure gauge became more rapid, and, while the day men still continued their work, they called to it the attention of Wolf, of the night shift, when he came at about half past 5.He accordingly went to one Charles Holden, who is called a foreman of subordinate superintendent, and told him of the trouble.There having, on a previous occasion, been discovered a leak in the galvanized iron tank, Holden conceived the possibility of a repetition of such defect, and called to his aid the tinner and a pipe setter.They took the tank, holding about seven gallons of oil, out of the box in which it ordinarily rested, and emptied it of gasoline, put it back in the box, filled the box with water, and then applied the air pump, with the idea that any holes in the tank would permit escape of air, which would show in bubbles.In doing this they discovered some gasoline outside of the tank, and in the wooden box, estimated by one witness to be about a quart, which it is testified must have leaked in there in some way.They found no sign of leakage in the tank, and therefore took the water out of the box, and replaced in the tank the same gasoline.It was then noticed that the union which joined to the tank the gasoline pipe running in under the building was wet with gasoline, and that, in connection with the gasoline which had dripped into the box, led to the inference that the leak existed there.The union was taken off, and the threads filled with white lead, and then put in place and tightened up, as a result of which the escape of pressure was very much, if not entirely corrected.The witness Holden says that the pressure gauge stood all right.The plaintiff says that it still ran down slowly; but it is entirely obvious that the condition of things which rendered necessary the aid of Holden and his mechanics had been substantially overcome; whereupon the plaintiff and Wolf went to work at their machines a few minutes after 6.Both of them had heated their dies once, and the plaintiff's die had again become cold, and, at about 8 o'clock, he proceeded to draw out the burner from the mandrel, and to strike a match to light it.Just at this point, as he was applying the match, a terrific explosion took place, which lifted the roof of the building many feet in the air, blew out all four brick walls down to the floor, and blew the plaintiff, Wolf, and another young man who was in the building outside of it.The roof fell back almost vertically.The machine at which Wolf was working was tipped over and torn loose from its joints to the floor.Certain pieces of wood that were piled up for the purpose of embossing were set on fire, as also a corner of the roof, but were easily extinguished as soon as the hose was in operation.The floor of the whole building was substantially in place and undisturbed but for the tilting down of one corner, where certain defective supports had given away, and the resulting tilting up of the diagonal corner.

No combustion took place beneath the floor, and, upon examination in the morning, all of the joints in the gasoline pipe beneath the floor were found to be completely tight.The plaintiff received severe injuries.It was shown by experts, substantially without contradiction, that gasoline vaporizes readily; the vapor is heavier than air, and sinks to the lowest place, like water, but, of course, with less celerity; that it, like other gases, has another property, called “diffusion,” whereby some portion of it will gradually diffuse throughout the space occupied by the air, and some portion of the air will diffuse through the space in which the heavier gasoline gas settles; that the gas from gasoline, of the quality used by the defendant, when mixed with atmospheric air in the proportion of 95 per cent. of the latter and about 5 per cent. of the former, constitutes a violently explosive mixture, if fire come in contact with it; that the gas from gasoline, when in larger proportion to the air, or “richer,” as it is termed, burns with great violence, but does not explode; that air currents or any other fortuitous circumstance may cause, at any point in a room, a variation in the proportions of mixture of air and gas; that in a half an hour there might escape from an imperfectly closed burner enough gasoline to supply vapor or gasoline gas...