Pein v. Miznerr

• Decision Date: 18 February 1908
• Docket Number: No. 6,169.,6,169.
• Citation: 83 N.E. 784,41 Ind.App. 255
• Parties: PEIN et al. v. MIZNERR.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

41 Ind.App. 255

83 N.E. 784

PEIN et al.

v.MIZNERR.

No. 6,169.¹

Appellate Court of Indiana, Division No. 2.

Feb. 18, 1908.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Marion County; Henry C. Allen, Judge.

Personal injury action by Mary E. Miznerr, by next friend, against George W. Pein and others. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Case transferred to Supreme Court.W. A. Ketcham and Joseph W. Hutchinsin, for appellants. George W. Galvin and William A. Reading, for appellee.

ROBY, C. J.

This is an action by appellee to recover damages on account of the alleged failure of the appellants, operators of a laundry, to guard a machine known as a mangle, as provided by section 9 of the act of April 27, 1899 (Acts 1899, p. 231, c. 142; section 7087i, Burns' Ann. St. 1901).

It is the position of the appellant that the machine described is not such a machine as is required by said section to be guarded. This question goes to the foundation of the case. If the judgment is affirmed, it must necessarily be decided. If the judgment is reversed, it is still one of those questions sure to arise in a retrial, and therefore one upon which the parties are entitled to a decision. The case of La Porte Carriage Co. v. Sullender, 165 Ind. 290, 75 N. E. 277, is cited as a controlling one. It is controlling to the extent to which it places a construction upon section 9 of said act. An attempt to determine, according to the terms of the opinion therein, whether the machine in question is such a machine as is contemplated by said act, discloses certain incongruities in said opinion and also certain inaccuracies in the application of a well-established principle of construction, which in view of the importance of the interests affected, should be corrected before the lapse of time renders it difficult to correct. Section 10 of the act of March 12, 1901 (Acts 1901, p. 567, c. 247; Burns' Ann. St. 1901, § 1337j), provides that: “If in any case, two of the judges of either division are of the opinion that a ruling precedent of the Supreme Court is erroneous, the case, with a written statement of the reasons for such opinion, shall be transferred to the Supreme Court.” And, of course, it is the pleasure of the Supreme Court to freely act upon such recommendations and adopt them when well made. That part of the factory act particularly involved is in terms as follows: “All vats, pans, saws, planers, cogs, gearing, belting, shafting, set screws and machinery of every description therein shall be properly guarded and no person shall remove or make ineffective any safeguard around or attached to any planer, saw, belting, shafting, or other machinery or around any vat or pan while the same is in use, except,” etc. Acts 1899, p. 234, c. 142, § 9. The legislative intent is perfectly plain. It was to minimize the likelihood of injury from dangerous machinery. This intent was accurately declared in the Sullender Case: “What evidently was intended or contemplated by the Legislature was that those parts of the machinery which were dangerous to employés, whose duties required them to work in the immediate vicinity of such dangerous machinery, should be properly guarded, in order to minimize, as far as possible, the perils or dangers attending their labor.” La Porte Carriage Co. v. Sullender, 165 Ind., at page 301, 75 N. E., at page 281. See Glens Falls, etc., Co. v. Travelers' Ins. Co., 162 N. Y. 299, 56 N. E. 897.

The doctrine of ejusdem generis is that where a general word follows particular and specific words of the same nature as itself, it takes its meaning from them, and is presumed to be restricted to the same genus as those words. Black on Interpretation of Laws, p. 141; Maxwell on Interpretation of Stats. p. 469; Sedgwick on Construction of Law, p. 360. The language here does not admit of the application of the ejusdem generis doctrine. The phrase “and machinery of every description” cannot be limited by the prior enumeration, for the reason that such enumeration is not an enumeration of machines at all. The genus of those words is not of the same nature as of “machinery of every description.” A vat is not a machine; neither is a pan, nor a saw. Cogs, gearing, belting, shafting, and set screws are not machines, but may each or all enter into and be a part of various machines. Since no enumeration of machinery precedes the general terms, there is nothing to limit those terms, and they are broad enough to cover any machine that is dangerous to life or limb, and which, without impairing its utility, can be guarded. Analyzed in accordance with the standard rules of legal hermeneutics, the meaning of the statute could as well be expressed as follows: Machinery of every description therein, and all vats, pans, saws, planers, cogs, gearing, belting, shafting, and set screws, shall be properly guarded. The ejusdem generis doctrine, even if it were applicable, “is but a rule of construction to aid in ascertaining the meaning of the Legislature, and does not warrant a court in confining the operation of a statute within narrower limits that was intended by the lawmakers. The general object of an act sometimes requires that the...