Pacific Coast Coal Co. v. Brown

• Decision Date: 01 June 1914
• Docket Number: 2275.
• Citation: 214 F. 255
• Parties: PACIFIC COAST COAL CO. v. BROWN.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

214 F. 255

PACIFIC COAST COAL CO. v. BROWN.

No. 2275.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

June 1, 1914

On motion for rehearing. Denied.

For former opinion, see 211 F. 869.

PER CURIAM.

In denying the petition for rehearing it need hardly be said that neither in the decision nor in the opinion filed herein did this court refuse to follow the construction placed by the Supreme Court of Washington upon a statute of the state. In none of the decisions of the Supreme Court of that state referred to by counsel do we understand the court to have held that the amended statute of the state found in section 7381 of Rem. & Bal. Code makes of such an employe as Righi in the present case the representative of the master. On the contrary, that court in the late case of Delaski et al v. Northwestern Improvement Co., 61 Wash. 255, 112 P 341, decided December 168 1910, distinctly adjudged that the state statute is the measure of the company's duty. The statute of the state of 1891 (Laws of 1891, c. 81, Sec. 9) expressly required every coal mine in the state to be kept 'free from standing powder smoke and gases of every kind,' which the Supreme Court of the state held, and, as we said in the opinion heretofore filed herein, imposed upon the operator thereof the imperative duty of complying with that law. But the Legislature of the state saw fit to modify that statute and in lieu of it enacted section 7381 of Rem. & Bal. Code, which provides as follows:

'The owner, agent or operator of every coal mine, whether operated by shafts, slopes or drifts, shall provide in every coal mine a good and sufficient amount of ventilation for such persons and animals as may be employed therein the amount of air in circulation to be in no case less than one hundred cubic feet per minute for each man, boy, horse or mule employed in said mine and as much more as the inspector may direct, and said air must be made to circulate through the shafts, levels, stables, and working places of each mine and on the traveling roads to and from all such working places. Every mine shall be divided into districts or splits, and not more than seventy-five persons shall be employed at any one time in each district or split: Provided, that where the inspector gives permission in writing a greater number than seventy-five men, but not to exceed one hundred men may be employed in each of said splits: Provided also, that in all mines already developed, where, in the opinion of the mining inspector, the system of splitting the air

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