Ornamental Iron & Wire Co. v. Green

• Decision Date: 16 November 1901
• Citation: 65 S.W. 399
• Parties: ORNAMENTAL IRON & WIRE CO. v. GREEN.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

65 S.W. 399

ORNAMENTAL IRON & WIRE CO. v. GREEN.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

November 16, 1901.

Error to circuit court, Hamilton county; Floyd Estell, Judge.

Action by Luther Green, by next friend, against the Ornamental Iron & Wire Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant brings error. Affirmed.

Frazier & Coleman and Fleming & Smallman, for plaintiff in error. Williams & Lancaster, for defendant in error.

BEARD, J.

The defendant in error is a minor, who, while in the service of the plaintiff in error, a manufacturing corporation in Chattanooga, received an injury which necessitated the amputation of a leg. At that time he was under 12 years of age. This suit was brought to recover damages for this injury, and it resulted in a verdict and judgment in his favor of $3,000.

The record discloses that the boy had been at work for the plaintiff in error inside its factory, and that going outside, to a yard of the company attached to the factory building, he was seriously injured by some panels of iron fence falling upon him. These panels weighed from 80 to 90 pounds each, and they had been placed or stacked by the company against a post awaiting their turn to be dipped in the paint bath near by. The theory of the plaintiff below was that he was on his way, under the orders of his superior, to deliver a message to another employé of the company, when accidentally he stumbled against these panels, thus causing the pile to topple and fall upon him, inflicting the hurt complained of. On the other hand, the theory of the defendant below was that young Green, having left of his own notion and without orders the factory building where he was employed, went into this yard on a matter not connected with his employment, where, finding these panels, he began to play with them by pulling them up, one at a time, to a vertical position against his body, and while doing this he lost his balance, and, falling backward, drew the pile upon his leg, thus inflicting, by his own folly, this injury on himself. By section 1, c. 159, Acts 1893 (Shannon's Code, § 4434), it is provided that it shall be unlawful for any proprietor, foreman, owner, or other person to employ any child, less than 12 years of age, in any workshop, mill, factory, or mine in this state; while section 3 of the act (Shannon's Code, § 4436) provides that any proprietor, foreman, or owner "employing a child less than twelve years of age * * * shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. * * *" An act similar to this was considered in Queenn v. Iron Co., 95 Tenn. 458, 32 S. W. 460, 30 L. R. A. 82, 49 Am. St. Rep. 935. In that case it was held that the employment of an infant under 12 years of age, in violation of a statute forbidding such employment, and declaring it a misdemeanor, constitutes per se such negligence as makes the employer liable for all injuries sustained by the infant in the course of his employment. This holding was made after a careful examination of the authorities, and we see no reason to depart from it.

The statute in question, like that involved in the Queenn Case, was wisely adopted by the legislature with...