Quick v. Minn. Iron Co.
| Decision Date | 19 November 1891 |
| Citation | 47 Minn. 361,50 N.W. 244 |
| Parties | QUICK v MINNESOTA IRON CO. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Application of the rule that a servant ordinarily assumes such risks of his employment, because of an unsafe place or of unsafe appliances, as are manifest to the senses, or may be ascertained by a prudent use of them.
Appeal from district court, St. Louis county; STEARNS, Judge.
Action by John Quick, administrator, against the Minnesota Iron Company, for negligence in causing the death of plaintiff's intestate. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals. Reversed.
Draper, Davis & Hollister, for appellant.
McGindley & Cotton, for respondent.
Action for injuries to plaintiff's intestate, from which he died, caused, as alleged, by the negligence of the defendant. The deceased was in the employment of the defendant as a miner. The defendant in its business of mining ore had sunk a vertical shaft about 300 feet deep. Along this, at intervals, were what are called “levels,” being horizontal excavations or tunnels extended from the shaft to reach the ore. Of these there were four, the fourth being, as we understand, at the bottom of the shaft. The first and second from the top had been abandoned; the third was still being worked; and the miners were working at and preparing the fourth. In the shaft was what is called a “cage,” being, as we understand, a lift or elevator, running up and down between the bottom of the shaft and the surface, and used for carrying tools and machinery and hoisting dirt, and frequently for carrying the men to and from their work in the shaft or levels. It was customary with defendant, as with all mining companies, working by means of such shafts, when opening a new level, to excavate around the sides of the shaft a road-way or passage for the men to pass from one side of the shaft to the other, without crossing it. A bell at the surface, with a line extending down to the different levels, was used, according to a prescribed code of signals, of one, two, or three taps, to call for the ascent and descent of the cage. At the time of the killing of the deceased the defendant had not made the road-way around the shaft at level 4, and had not extended the bell line from level 3 to level 4, so that the only means for those working at level 4 to indicate when they desired the cage to be let down or drawn up was to call to the men at level 3, and they signaled by the bell to those running the cage. The deceased had been at work for defendant in other shafts and this shaft five or six months, and about two weeks excavating this shaft between level 3 and level 4. It was necessary for the men working at the level to go from time to time to the other side of the shaft, and, there being no roadway, they had to go across the shaft in order to do so. While crossing on one of these occasions deceased was killed by the cage, which ran without noise, coming down upon him. He had previously called to the men at level 3 to signal for...
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