Saling v. American Chicle Company
| Decision Date | 02 March 1914 |
| Citation | 166 S.W. 823,177 Mo.App. 374 |
| Parties | MARY E. SALING, Respondent, v. AMERICAN CHICLE COMPANY, Appellant |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Rehearing Denied 177 Mo.App. 374 at 378.
Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court.--Hon. R. B. Middlebrook, Judge.
REVERSED.
Judgment reversed.
Warner Dean, McLeod & Langworthy for appellant.
Bird & Pope for respondent.
Plaintiff's action is for injury received by having her fingers and hand partially crushed by a machine belonging to defendant, and which she was operating in the performance of her duty as one of its employees. She recovered judgment in the circuit court.
Defendant's business was the manufacture of chewing gum. The ingredients composing the gum were cooked until it came to a certain consistency when it was cooled, divided into seven-pound lumps, and then kneaded something after the manner of dough in the making of bread, except that powdered sugar was used instead of flour. After being kneaded, it was pressed by a machine into cakes about six by eight inches and one inch thick. These cakes were then turned over to female employees who operated several machines which roll the cakes down to the proper thickness for the market. After being rolled the gum is marked, dried, broken into sizes and then wrapped as found when sold at retail.
One of these rolling machines was operated by plaintiff. It consisted of two steel rollers (operated by a belt and pulley) revolving together so as to draw the cake or sheet of gum between them, thus, rolling and thinning it down by spreading and lengthening it. These rollers were subject to adjustment by turning a small wheel at the end, so that when the cake or sheet, one inch thick, went through the first time the rollers were brought closer together and the process repeated to the fifth rolling, when the requisite thinness would be obtained. There was a feed board upon which these sheets would be placed by the operator preparatory to pushing them forward with her left hand to be caught by the rollers. Parallel with the rollers and about six inches in front of them, was a metal guard or fender, an inch and a half wide and a little more than an inch above the feed board. An iron or steel hood came down over the rollers to within about two inches of the top of this guard, thus leaving that space between the hood and the guard, through which one, by stooping, could look in at the rollers and could observe the movement of the sheets of gum, and through which plaintiff says her hand passed to the rollers.
She had been engaged at this work, without trouble, for near five months, and on the day of her injury some sheets or cakes had been turned over to her for thinning down through the pressure of the rollers. She testified that the one she took up was too soft for proper manipulation through the rollers and that it had a lump near the end which somewhat obstructed her pushing it under the guard towards the rollers--that in her effort to push it along her hand sunk into it to some extent when it suddenly was caught by the rollers and jerked forward, carrying her hand against the...
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