Republic Iron & Steel Company v. Lulu
| Decision Date | 16 November 1910 |
| Docket Number | 6,683 |
| Parties | REPUBLIC IRON AND STEEL COMPANY v. LULU |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Rehearing denied June 29, 1911.
From Lake Superior Court; Harry B. Tuthill, Judge.
Action by Stani Lulu against the Republic Iron and Steel Company. From a judgment on a verdict for the plaintiff for $ 3,000 defendant appeals.
Affirmed.
Crumpacker & Moran, Richard Jones, Jr., and Fred Crumpacker, for appellant.
F. N Gavit, J. W. McAleer and J. E. Westfall, for appellee.
Appellant is engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel products, and for this purpose maintains a large rolling-mill and iron furnace. In the process of manufacturing these products, the raw material is melted in the furnaces to a liquid form, and foreign substances, which are known as slag, are separated from the pure iron, and while in a molten state are drawn from the furnace into a pot, known as a cinder pot.
Appellant's cinder pot was sunk in the ground until the top of the pot was on a level with the surface of the ground, and was located outside the walls of appellant's building enclosing its furnace, so that it was exposed to the weather.
The slag, after it is cool enough to handle, is removed from the cinder pot to the dump pile, and, for convenience in handling it, while it is still in a liquid state an iron link is suspended in the molten mass, from a bar placed across the top of the pot. Around this link the slag gathers and hardens as it cools. It appears that while the slag is in a molten state its contact with water is harmless, but there is a certain stage in the process of its cooling when contact with water will cause a dangerous explosion.
Appellee was engaged in appellant's service in charge of the cinder pot, and while engaged in the duties of his service was severely injured by the explosion of the slag, caused by his stepping into a pool of water near the cinder pot, which had gathered there from a recent rain, and which caused the water to splash into the cinder pot onto the hot slag.
This action was brought by appellee to recover damages for the injuries thus sustained. He claims that said injuries resulted from negligence on the part of appellant in failing to warn him of the danger. The case was put at issue and a trial had, resulting in a verdict in favor of appellee.
In this court the sufficiency of the complaint is assailed, as is also the ruling of the court below on appellant's motion for judgment in its favor on the answers returned by the jury to interrogatories submitted to it, and on its motion for a new trial.
The complaint set forth facts showing the nature of appellant's business and of appellee's employment, the nature of the material appellee was required to work with, in reference to its explosive character, and showing that the iron vessel, in which the slag was run from the furnace, was located as heretofore stated, and that it was sunk in the earth until its top was on a level with the surface of the ground.
It was further alleged that the ground around the vessel was packed and hardened, and of an uneven surface, so that when it rained water would stand in pools in such uneven places for a day at a time, after the rain was over. All such conditions, it is charged, were known to appellant. The complaint narrates the circumstances attending the accident that resulted in appellee's injury, and expressly alleges that appellee was ignorant of the fact that the slag was liable to explode on coming in contact with water, and alleges, also, that appellant knew of this quality in the slag and of the danger arising therefrom, and negligently set appellee to do the work in which he was engaged, knowing him to be ignorant of the explosive character of the slag on its coming in contact with water, without informing him of such explosive character, or warning him of the danger, and that appellee stepped into the water, by reason of the negligence of appellant in so failing to instruct or warn him, and "that his injuries were caused by the negligence before alleged."
It is insisted that the complaint is insufficient to withstand a demurrer (1) because it fails to show that the injury complained of did not result from an assumed risk of the employment; (2) because it fails to show that the injury was proximately caused by the negligence averred; (3) because it affirmatively appears that the injury was the result of an accident, not reasonably to have been anticipated as a result of the negligence charged, and therefore created no liability against appellant.
In support of its first contention, appellant maintains that the danger of injury from the explosive character of the slag was an ordinary risk of appellee's employment, which he assumed when he accepted the employment. It is argued that a liability to explode was inherent in the thing appellee's employment required him to work with and around, and we are cited to the case of Myers v. W. C. DePauw Co. (1894), 138 Ind. 590, as decisive authority for this contention.
The case cited involved an injury to an employe in a plate glass factory, whose duties required him to handle plate glass, and whose hand was cut by the breaking of glass. It was there held that the master was under no duty to inform the servant, who entered its service, of the danger arising from the liability of the glass to break. The court, in deciding the case, said: It is for this reason that the court held in that case that no duty to instruct or warn the employe rested on the master. The servant could, by looking at the glass, see the danger. It was a matter of common knowledge. Such, however, is not the character of the substance with which appellee in this case was required to deal. The court cannot say that the slag or cinders were inherently explosive, nor is it a matter of common knowledge that hot slag will explode, or that it will explode when brought in contact with water, and it could not be told by looking at the substance that it possessed this quality. In fact, it appears that it is not explosive when brought into contact with water, except under certain conditions; but when these conditions exist--that is, when is has sufficiently cooled so as to become hardened on the surface--then if it comes in contact with water a dangerous explosion is inevitable. If this peculiar quality of the slag is known, danger to those who handle it, arising from this cause, can easily be avoided. In fact, if proper care is used, the danger may be eliminated, but if it is not known, and conditions are such that water may be brought in contact with the slag when it is in that peculiar state that contact will cause an explosion, danger is ever present while the conditions exist, and is present only because of the ignorance of those whose movements around the water and the hot slag when they are in such proximity may bring the hot slag and water in contact with each other. The position of the man who is ignorant of the explosive character of the slag, and who works around it under such conditions, is somewhat similar to that of a soldier, who, charging an enemy's fort, treads over ground underlaid with torpedoes, or a ship sailing over a harbor that has been mined.
The averments of the complaint are that appellant set appellee to work with this slag pot, with the hot slag in it; that in the course of appellee's work with and around it, the slag necessarily came into that state when it would explode if brought in contact with water; that the top of the pot was level with the surface of the ground, and the ground around it was filled with pools of water; that appellee was ignorant of the danger resulting from the contact of the water and the slag; that appellant knew the conditions, knew the explosive quality of the slag, and knew that appellee was ignorant that it possessed this quality.
The law requires of the master, at the inception of the relation, or when the work is assigned to an inexperienced servant, that he inform such servant not only of extraordinary dangers, but of the ordinary dangers that are likely to arise in the work, and which the servant cannot see and understand without such information. 2 Bailey, Per. Inj. § 2665; Buswell, Per. Inj. § 202; Wharton, Negligence, § 208; Wood, Master and Serv. (2d ed.) § 349; 1 Labatt, Master and Serv. § 240, and cases cited; St. Louis, etc., R. Co. v. Valirius (1877), 56 Ind. 511; Salem Stone, etc., Co. v. Griffin (1894), 139 Ind. 141, 38 N.E. 411; Smith v. Peninsular Car Works (1886), 60 Mich. 501, 27 N.W. 662, 1 Am. St. 542; Parkhurst v. Johnson (1883), 50 Mich. 70, 15 N.W. 107, 45 Am. St. 28.
The conditions shown by the facts averred in the complaint clearly imposed the duty upon the master to put his ignorant servant upon the same footing with himself with reference to knowledge of the danger; to arm him with the knowledge necessary to enable him to protect himself from the danger. Do the facts averred show the injury complained of was the proximate cause of the negligence charged? The proximate cause of a given result may not be the immediate cause. Proximate cause, within the meaning of the expression when used in a legal sense, is the efficient cause; the cause that starts the train of circumstances that leads to the injury. In legal contemplation, that may be a cause of a particular occurrence which fails to prevent it, as well as acts and circumstances that...
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