Sharp v. Stuebner Cleaning & Mercantile Co.

• Decision Date: 05 December 1927
• Docket Number: No. 16105.,16105.
• Parties: SHARP v. STUEBNER CLEANING & MERCANTILE CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

300 S.W. 559

SHARP v. STUEBNER CLEANING & MERCANTILE CO.

No. 16105.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

December 5, 1927.

Error to Circuit Court, Buchanan County; L. A. Vories, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by Oscar O. Sharp against the Stuebner Cleaning & Mercantile Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Reversed and remanded.

John S. Boyer, of St. Joseph, and Mosman, Rogers & Buzard, of Kansas City, for plaintiff in error.

Miles Elliott, Duvall & Boyd, of St. Joseph, for defendant in error.

BLAND, J.

This is a suit for damages for personal injuries. Plaintiff recovered a verdict and judgment in the sum of $750 and defendant has appealed.

Plaintiff claims to have suffered an injury to his eyes, nose and nasal passages by reason of dust laden with infectious, poisonous and deleterious substance or germs getting into them while he was employed in operating a rug-beating machine owned by the defendant Defendant was engaged in the rug-beating and cleaning business in the city of St. Joseph and operated what is known as the Cleveland rug beater. This machine was located in a room 40 feet, east and west, by 50 feet, north and south, in defendant's establishment. The rug-beating machine was 13 feet in length, east and west, and about 4 feet wide, north and south. It seems that the machine was entirely incased in a covering with the exception of openings used for the purpose of inserting rugs and carpets and permitting them to leave the machine. The rugs and carpets were fed into the machine on the south side thereof and, consequently, the operator was required to face the machine, or toward the north, while working. Extending the entire length of the machine, along the south side, was a screen or shelf about 4 inches in width, on top of which the rugs and carpets were placed in starting them into the machine to be beaten. For the full length of the machine, on the south side thereof, was what was known as a stationary channel iron. The space between the bottom part of the channel iron and the shelf or screen was two or three inches. There was a hood on the south part of the machine similar to the top of a roller-top desk, which could be raised up and down but when in a closed position it rested upon this channel iron. In addition to the opening on the south side of the machine, there was a like opening on the west end, which extended somewhat horizontally across that end to permit a carpet of greater width than the machine to extend through the slot thus made by this opening. On the north side of the machine there was an opening about 12 inches in width through which the carpets left the machine.

The carpet or rug was inserted by the operator into the machine through the two or three inch opening above described. As soon as the rug entered the machine, it was engaged by a cylindrical fiber brush, which extended the full length of the machine and was bolted to a metal shaft which revolved toward the operator. This brush carried the carpet or rug into the beating machine proper, which consisted of a convex metal plate with a corrugated surface having small perforations in the grooves. Above this plate was a shaft in a horizontal position to which were attached rubber belting straps 18 inches long" and about 2 inches in width, and the rapid revolutions of this shaft caused the straps to whip or beat the carpet upon the metal perforated plate. The carpets were run through the machine upside down and the dust beaten out of the carpet on its lower side was drawn through the holes in the plate into pipes situated under the same, by means of suction caused by an exhaust fan located at the east end of the machine. The dust was then blown through another pipe to the outside of the building. The shaft upon which the straps were attached revolved toward the front of the machine or toward the operator. The revolving brush and straps caused much dust, lint and coloring matter from the rugs and carpets to be thrown through the various openings in the machine out and onto the operator.

Plaintiff testified that it was necessary to feed the rug into the machine—" * * * get It straight in there, keep it from pulling in twisted and having the rug roll up so it won't beat it. Get it started and the operator has to stand and watch it so that one side don't pull ahead of the other or you get the rug twisted—you have to stand right here; this brush revolves toward you and there is dust, dirt and lint thrown out on the operator all the time. It is necessary for you to stand there until the rug is almost completely in the brush, then walk around to the other side, so it don't catch over there; pick it up— lots of them you have to run through three or four times, go through the same operation again."

While the evidence shows that the heaviest rug ever brought in to be cleaned was only a half an inch thick, It would appear that the openings in the machine were required to be of greater width than the carpet as from the evidence just quoted, it seems that it was necessary for the operator to see into the machine. The testimony shows that the hood of the machine, or that part above the carpet when inserted into the machine, was not equipped with any apparatus to remove dust from the machine and that the dust which accumulated above the carpet was thrown upon and about the operator by the revolving brush and straps. The testimony shows that at times this dust caused the room to become "rather foggy—everything that could be pounded off the rug, coloring, nap, lint or whatnot, is scattered out over this room by that beating machine." Over the objection of the defendant, plaintiff was permitted to state, although there is no testimony that he had any mechanical knowledge whatever, that he had worked at the machine long enough to learn that there could have been a suction fan attached to the top or hood of the machine and the dust drawn out by this means. An officer of the defendant testified that dust could have been removed from the hood of the machine if a "fan big enough were used"; "a great big fan." There was no provision made for taking care of the dust generated on top of the rug except the hood and, as before stated, it did not prevent the dust from getting out. The hood did not fit tightly although there was nothing to keep it from being made tight.

Plaintiff had been working for the defendant for sixteen months, when on July 10, 1923, he claims his eyes and nose and nasal passages became infected. His duties consisted in part of running rugs through the machine in question. No inspection of the rugs was provided for except that they were brought in by the driver of the truck and placed where plaintiff would secure them and look at them and find out if they were fit to run through the machine. This inspection was to determine as to whether they were too wet, old or ragged for the machine to handle. Neither did defendant have any arrangement whereby rugs and carpets were disinfected before being run through the machine. The rugs and carpets cleaned would be gathered promiscuously from hotels, theaters, private residences, rooming houses, etc.

On July 10, 1923, plaintiff was ordered by defendant to go into the room where the beating machine was located and "clean up" a lot consisting of fifteen rugs that had been placed there. It appears that customarily after rugs were beaten they were taken to the basement and washed. Plaintiff obeyed this order and after he had beaten the rugs and washed...