Perrier v. Dunn Worsted Mills

• Decision Date: 01 February 1909
• Citation: 29 R.I. 396,71 A. 796
• Parties: PERRIER v. DUNN WORSTED MILLS.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

71 A. 796

29 R.I. 396

PERRIER

v. DUNN WORSTED MILLS.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Feb. 1, 1909.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; William H. Sweetland, Presiding Justice.

Action by Alphonse Perrier against the Dunn Worsted Mills. A demurrer to plaintiff's declaration was sustained, and plaintiff brings exceptions. Sustained.

Plaintiff was employed in defendant's mills as a pressing machine tender. It was necessary to pile in a passageway adjacent to the machine a larger roll or rolls of cloth than usual, owing to one of the machines being out of order. Plaintiff was injured by his foot catching or becoming entangled in a "leader," so called, while engaged in carrying a roll of cloth through the passageway in the performance of his duty as tender in obedience to an order to hurry made by his superior. The declaration alleged that plaintiff and his co-employés were fully absorbed in the work, and in consequence of haste had to sew the roll which they were carrying to the roll which already had been run through the machine, and had barely sufficient time in which to do the work; that before they could sew the rolls together they had to hastily carry the second roll between the machine and a pile of rolls, a distance of about eight feet.

Thomas P. Corcoran and James M. Gillrain, for plaintiff.

Gardner, Pirce & Thornley and Fred A. Otis (William W. Moss, of counsel), for defendant.

PARKHURST, J. This case is before this court upon exception to the decision of the superior court sustaining a demurrer to the amended declaration; the said decision holding in substance that the plaintiff knew of the condition of the passageway and of the loose piece of cloth upon the floor, and must have known of the danger incident to this condition of the passageway, and that the averments of the amended declaration do not show such a case of emergency as would excuse forgetfulness on the part of the plaintiff or the neglect of due care for his own safety.

We are of the opinion that the averments of the declaration, if sustained by adequate proof, would make out such a case of emergency as would entitle the plaintiff to go to the jury on the questions of assumed risk and contributory negligence. There are averments of the breaking down of one of two pressing machines and of the consequent accumulation of an unusual number of rolls of cloth on the floor, in a space usually free for passage to and from the machines; of the piling of these rolls of cloth in this space upon a loose piece of cloth, called a "leader," by the plaintiff and another employé under the express orders of the overseer, so that the passage between the pile of rolls and the dewing machine was so narrow that a roll of cloth carried through the space grazed the pile of rolls on one side and the dewing machine on the other; that the plaintiff and his assistant were expressly ordered by the overseer "to hurry along the work on said machine, as the output from...