Ohio Bldg. Safety Vault Co. v. Indus. Bd.

• Decision Date: 21 February 1917
• Docket Number: No. 10903.,10903.
• Citation: 277 Ill. 96,115 N.E. 149
• Parties: OHIO BUILDING SAFETY VAULT CO. v. INDUSTRIAL BOARD et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

277 Ill. 96

115 N.E. 149

OHIO BUILDING SAFETY VAULT CO.

v.INDUSTRIAL BOARD et al.

No. 10903.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 21, 1917.

Error to Circuit Court, Cook County; Oscar M. Torrison, Judge.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act by the widow of Jens Christensen to obtain compensation for the death of her husband, opposed by the Ohio Building Safety Vault Company, employer.Compensation was awared by the Industrial Board affirming an award of the committee of arbitration in the sum of $31 a month for 96 months and affirmed on certiorari by the circuit court, from which judgment the employer brings error.Affirmed.Zimmerman & Garrett and Charles Le Roy Brown, all of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

William E. Griffin, of Chicago (James C. McShane, of Chicago, of counsel), for defendants in error.

CARTER, J.

This was a proceeding before the Industrial Board of Illinois under the Workmen's Compensation Act to recover for the injuries causing the death of Jens Christensen, received on the night of December 19, 1914, while in the employ of plaintiff in error.The committee of arbitration, after hearing the evidence, made an award in favor of the applicant, the widow.On petition for review before the Industrial Board the finding of the committee of arbitration was affirmed, and it was adjudged that applicant was entitled to receive from plaintiff in error the sum of $31 a month for 96 months from December 23, 1914, the date of Christensen's death.The circuit court, on the case being taken there on writ of certiorari, affirmed the judgment of the Industrial Board.The trial judge having certifiedthat the cause was one proper to be reviewed by this court, it was thereafter brought here by writ of error.

On the hearing before the Industrial Board it was agreed between the parties that both the deceased and the plaintiff in error were working under and subject to the Workmen's Compensation Act.

The deceased was of 66 years old.He had been employed for four years as fireman and night watchman by plaintiff in error in the Ohio building, at the southeast corner of Wabash avenue and Congress street, in Chicago.His custom was to come to his work at about a quarter to 6 in the evening and to leave at about the same hour in the morning.He left a widow and eight children, all of age except one.Three of the children were living with their parents at the time of the injury.The Ohio building has 160 feet frontage on Wabash avenue and 90 feet on Congress street and contains four stories and a basement.The three upper stories were occupied by various dealers in books, a school of music, a portrait company, and other offices.On the first floor there were a number of stores, some fronting on Wabash avenue and some on Congress street, and the Moffett Photographic Studio was in the rear of the building, fronting on the latter street.The north half of the basement was occupied by the Kercher Turkish Baths.The boiler room was in the southeast corner of the basement.The main entrance was located on Wabash avenue, opening on the first floor into a wide corridor running east and in which were located the passenger and freight elevators and a stairway leading to the upper floors.In the back hall was an iron stairway leading down into the basement.There was also a stairway in the front end of the corridor on the first floor, leading to the basement.As we understand the record, there was no entrance to the basement directly from Wabash avenue or Congress street, but there was an entrance directly from Wabash avenue into the rooms of the Kercher Baths, and through them, by doors opening into the Kercher Baths, one could reach the corridor in the basement, and this was the only way to get into the basement of the building except from the stairway on the first floor.There was a corridor running east and west through about the center of the basement.The Kercher Baths were entirely north of this, and the storerooms, boiler room, and other rooms south of it.There was another corridor toward the west end of the basement, running north and south from the foot of the iron stairway to the boiler room, a distance of a little over 40 feet.The boiler room was about 3 feet below the rest of the basement, with three steps leading down to it from the south end of the last-mentioned corridor.At night the only lights usually lit in the basement were one at the foot of the iron stairway and those in the boiler room.The office portion of the building was closed at 7 o'clock every night, and the doors at the Wabash avenue entrance were then locked.There were no elevators run after that hour and no janitors in the building.The only person thereafter working, outside of the Kercher Baths, was the deceased.While he looked after the building, it does not appear that he made regular rounds.He was supposed to see that the Wabash avenue doors were closed and locked and the windows on the upper floors closed and the lights through the building extinguished.He was also supposed to go into the Moffett Studio, at the rear of the corridor on the first floor, and turn on an electric light early in the evening to furnish a window display and an hour or less before midnight to switch this light off.The light was switched off on the night in question.It is said that about midnight it was customary for him to go out and get a bucket of coffee.There is evidence in the record that on the night in question at about that hour he went to a restaurant near by for that purpose.No one knew his custom with respect to locking or unlocking the Wabash avenue doors on the first floor when he went out.About 12:30 o'clock on the night in question the foreman in the Kercher Baths noticed that the steam was getting low and attempted to communicate with Christensen through a speaking tube reaching to the boiler room, to ask him to furnish more steam.No response could be obtained, and thereupon a colored porter, Jackson, was sent to look up the deceased.On reaching the three steps leading down into the boiler room he saw deceased's lighted lantern, and a moment later the deceased himself sitting on a chair in the boiler room, dazed and in a seriously injured condition; his head and face being very bloody and a pool of blood on the ground beside him.Jackson at once called to another of the bath employés (Maurer) that some one had ‘killed the night watchman.’The foreman and another employé of the bath rooms were called, and shortly thereafter Christensen was assisted into the bath rooms, where the blood was washed off his face and he was cared for temporarily.Some of the employés talked to him, and when asked how he got hurt he replied in a fragmentary way: ‘I hurt my head.’‘I am awful sick.’‘I can't do anything at all.’Policemen were sent for, and when they came they asked his name, and he answered, ‘Jim,’ as they understood him.He also stated that he had hurt himself; that he felt sick.The day engineer, Hinckley, was sent for and reached the Ohio building shortly after 1 o'clock in the morning.At that time the deceased was in an ambulance about to be removed to a hospital.Hinckley examined the building and testified that he found in the north and south corridor leading from the iron stairway to the boiler room a pool of blood, a spilled coffee bucket, deceased's cap, and a gas pipe about four feet long.Hinckley went with a police officer and they found blood on the iron stairway leading up to the first floor of the building, and a slight trial of blood led to the door from Moffett's Studio; that door being found open.Spots of blood were also observable in the studio.Hinckley stated, in answer to a question, he thought that after the deceased regained consciousnessand found how badly he was hurt he had gone upstairs to the studio intending to telephone, as he usually used that telephone when he wanted to communicate with any one outside, and that he thereafter went back to the boiler room, where he was found.The deceased's key ring, which usually contained 16 keys, was never found.This key ring was carried by Hinckley during the day and contained keys to the entrance doors and various rooms in the building.Hinckley had separate keys to the Wabash avenue entrance, and when he went to let the policemen out at that entrance was surprised to find they had entered that door when they arrived; it being then unlocked.There was no evidence that an attempt had been made to break into any of the stores.The deceased had been paid off a few days before and had the greater part of his half month's wages on his person when he went to work that evening.After his injury only ten cents was found on him, and an Ingersoll watch which he carried was missing.Hankes, one of the employés of the bath rooms, testified that about a quarter to 12 that night, while he was cleaning a bath tub which stood about 4 feet from the door leading into the basement corridor where the blood was found, he heard some footsteps, which seemed to be going towards the boiler room.He testified that shortly thereafter he heard a crash-a heavy fall, like an armful of wood being thrown down on the cement floor-and a second or two later heard a piece of metal strike the floor, ringing out clearly and apparently from the corridor between the stairway, and the boiler room, at about where the pool of blood and gas pipe were afterwards found.He also said that the sound appeared something like the breaking of glass or a bucket falling; that about a minute or two afterwards he heard what might be compared to a rattle of a bunch of keys and then footsteps coming rapidly toward him and going up the stairs, the keys still rattling.No other clews in connection with the injury to the deceased were ever discovered.The testimony is to the effect that deceased was of a peaceable disposition and was not known to have an enemy.The injury from which Christensen died was...