Rooney v. Sewall & Day Cordage Co.

• Decision Date: 28 March 1894
• Parties: ROONEY v. SEWALL & DAY CORDAGE CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

161 Mass. 153

36 N.E. 789

ROONEY v. SEWALL & DAY CORDAGE CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 28, 1894

Plaintiff, at the time of the accident, was employed in hauling piles of soft, loosely-coiled hemp along the floor from two machines called "breakers" to four machines called "drawing frames," in the same room. These piles of hemp were about three feet wide, four feet long, and varied between four and five feet in height. They were hauled along the floor by means of a long-handled hook, which the plaintiff fastened at the bottom of the pile and which he held in his right hand, and by getting hold with his left hand in the hemp, about two-thirds way up from the floor, so as to keep the pile from falling, while he walked backward, dragging it along the floor. The plaintiff had no charge or care of any of these machines. It was his duty simply to keep the drawing frames supplied with hemp. Between the breakers, where he received the hemp, and the drawing frames, stood a machine called a "topper," which was all boxed in, except the end of the shaft and two pulleys thereon, projecting from the side next the first drawing frame. One of these pulleys, next and close to the machine was fixed tight to the shaft. The other pulley was loose, and held in place by a collar flush with the end of the shaft which was fastened by a set screw. The set screw and shaft stood about 31/2 feet from the floor, and were left exposed. The collar and end of the shaft were round and smooth, but the set screw had a sharp-cornered, square head, and stood out perpendicularly from the collar about an inch. While plaintiff was hauling a pile of hemp, it caught in the rapidly revolving screw, and twisted off his arm.

COUNSEL

J.A. McGeough, for plaintiff.

Cummings, Higginson & McLaughlin, for defendant.

OPINION

KNOWLTON J.

When the plaintiff entered the defendant's service, he impliedly agreed to assume all the obvious risks of the business, including the risk of injury from the kind of machinery then openly used. It is not material whether he examined the machinery before making his contract or not. He could look it over, if he chose, or he could say: "I do not care to examine it. I will agree to work in this mill, and I am willing to take my risk in regard to that." In either case he would be held to contract in reference to the kind of place, and the arrangement and kind of machinery, then regularly in use by his employer, so far as these things were open and obvious, so that they could readily be ascertained by such examination and inquiry as one would be expected to make if he wished to know the nature and perils of the service in which he was about to engage. A projecting set screw is a common device for holding the collar on a shaft, although there is a safer kind of set screw in common use. Under its contract with the plaintiff, the defendant owed him no duty to box the pulley or shaft, or to change the set screw for a safer one. Coombs v. Cordage Co., 102 Mass. 572.

It is contended by the plaintiff that the defendant was negligent in not warning him of the danger. The rule of law invoked by the plaintiff applies only when there is a danger known, or which ought to be known, to the employer, of which the employe, through youth or inexperience, is ignorant, and which the employe cannot reasonably be expected to discover by the exercise of ordinary care. In this case, although the set screw could not be seen when the shaft was revolving, it was plainly visible when the shaft was at rest; and while the screw doubtless increased, somewhat, the danger of being caught by contact with the shaft, belt, or...