Strafford v. Republic Iron & Steel Co.

• Decision Date: 19 February 1909
• Citation: 87 N.E. 358,238 Ill. 371
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: STRAFFORD v. REPUBLIC IRON & STEEL CO.

238 Ill. 371

87 N.E. 358

STRAFFORD

v.REPUBLIC IRON & STEEL CO.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 19, 1909.

Appeal from Appellate Court, Second District, on Appeal from Circuit Court, Rock Island County; William H. Gest, Judge.

Action for personal injuries by Russell Strafford, by his next friend, against the Republic Iron & Steel Company. A judgment for plaintiff was affirmed by the Appellate Court, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

William A. Meese, Richard Jones, Jr., and Peek & Dietz, for appellant.

W. R. Moore, for appellee.

FARMER, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Court affirming a judgment of the circuit court in favor of appellee for $10,000 for personal injuries. Appellee is a minor, and was employed by appellant to work in its steel mill or manufacturing establishment about the middle of May, 1906. On the 25th day of October, 1906, while feeding angle irons into the ‘straightening machine,’ he received injuries that resulted in the loss of his left arm and one finger of the right hand. At the time of said injury appellee was 13 years, 11 months, and 8 days old. The first two counts of the declaration are based on section 1 of the act of 1897 (Laws 1897, p. 90; Hurd's Rev. St. 1908, p. 1038), which provides ‘that no child under the age of fourteen years shall be employed, permitted or suffered to work for wages at any gainful occupation hereinafter mentioned.’ The occupations thereafter mentioned in the act embrace manufacturing establishments, factories, and workshops. The third count is based on section 6 of said act, which provides that ‘no child under the age of sixteen years shall be employed, or permitted or suffered to work by any person, firm or corporation in this state at such extrahazardous employment whereby its life or limb is in danger, or its health is likely to be injured, or its morals may be depraved.’ Each count of the declaration charged that the employment of appellee by appellant was unlawful and was the proximate cause of his injuries. Appellant pleaded the general issue, and a trial by jury resulted in a verdict in favor of appellee for $10,000, upon which the circuit court, after overruling a motion for a new trial, rendered judgment, and the Appellate Court for the Second District has affirmed that judgment.

It was a controverted question of fact on the trial whether appellee was set at the work he was performing when injured by appellant's foreman, or whether he had been set to do other work which he quit without orders to do so, and, without any directions from the foreman, but against his orders, began the work of feeding angle irons into the machine, which he was engaged in doing when injured. The proof offered by appellee tended to show he was set at the work he was engaged at when injured by the foreman, while the proof offered by appellant tended to show he was set at other work and ordered not to work at the straightening machine. Appellant's contention is that it was incumbent upon appellee to prove his injury was the direct and proximate result of the unlawful employment, and that if he had of his own accord left the work he was employed for, and directed to do and attempted to do a different character of work which he was forbidden to do, and was injured while so engaged, and his own negligence contributed to the injury, then there can be no recovery.

The second instruction given on motion of appellee is as follows: ‘The jury are instructed that in this case the law is that no child under the age of 14 years shall be employed, permitted, or suffered to work at any gainful occupation in any mercantile institution, store, office, laundry, manufacturing establishment, factory, or workshop within this state; and in this case it does not make any difference whether the plaintiff was or was not told by the foreman to work on the straightening machine, if you believe from the evidence the plaintiff was under the age of 14 years at the time he was injured and was at that time working for defendant in its manufacturing establishment for a compensation to him to be paid by defendant.’ The court refused instructions asked by appellant to the effect that it was incumbent upon appellee to prove that he was in the exercise of due care, and that he could not recover if at the time of the accident he was doing work he was not authorized to perfrom or which he had been forbidden to do. The correctness of the court's rulings in giving appellee's instruction No. 2 and refusing those asked by the appellant are the only questions presented for our consideration.

In American Car Co. v. Armentraut, 214 Ill. 509, 73 N. E. 766, it was held that one of the purposes of the statute was to protect children from their own immaturity, inexperience, and heedlessness, and that, where a child under 14 years of age employed in violation of the statute was injured while engaged in the performance of the work he was directed to do, the negligence of the child, though it may have contributed to the injury, was no defense to the liability of the employer. In that case the child was injured while engaged in doing the work it was directed to do by the employer. After stating the rule announced in the opinion that contributory negligence was not a defense where the injury resulted while the child was performing the work he was directed to do, the court said: ‘If the child left the task which he had been directed to perform, and, while not engaged in doing work which he had been directed to do by his master was injured through an accident to which his own negligence contributed while he was still in or upon the premises of the master, a different question would present itself.’ This language, appellant insists, indicates the views of the court was that in such cases contributory negligence would constitute a defense. We do not think it means any more than it said-i. e., that the court had no such question as that before it for consideration-and is not to be accepted as an expression of the court's view of the law if such question had been presented. The statute in express and positive language forbade the employment of appellee in the business appellant was engaged in, in any capacity, and in the Armentraut Case it was said such construction should be given the act as to effectuate its purpose, if it can be done without violence to the letter of the statute. The validity of such statutes has been sustained as an exercise of the police power of the state upon the ground that the state is interested in the protection of children, and to that end may pass laws preventing their employment at a tender age, when th...