Tatum v. Crescent Laundry Co.
| Decision Date | 18 January 1919 |
| Citation | 208 S.W. 139,201 Mo.App. 97 |
| Parties | ROSE TATUM, Respondent, v. CRESCENT LAUNDRY CO., Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Pemiscot County Circuit court.--Hon. Sterling H McCarty, Judge.
REVERSED.
Judgment affirmed.
Mozley & Evans for appellant.
Duncan & Corbett for respondent.
Judgment for plaintiff for person al injuries and defendant appeals. The action is based on section 7828, Revised Statutes 1909, and alleges that plaintiff was injured by working in defendant's laundry at Webb City, Mo., by reason of her clothing being caught by a revolving power shaft; that such shaft was dangerous to workmen, including plaintiff, employed therein, while engaged in their ordinary duties and could and should have been, but was not guarded. The answer was a general denial and a plea of contributory negligence.
There is no question as to plaintiff being injured by reason of her dress skirt being caught in the revolving line shaft which furnished power by means of belts and pulleys to all the machinery in defendant's laundry. This line shaft was near the floor and plaintiff was thrown down and her arm crushed and broken, necessitating an amputation just below the elbow. At the time of her injury plaintiff was just starting to work at a starching machine connected by a belt and pulley with the power shaft. Plaintiff had worked at this laundry previously for sometime and was somewhat familiar with the surroundings of and method of operating the machine. It took two persons to operate the machine, working at opposite ends--the one to feed the collars, etc., to be starched in the machine and the other, plaintiff, to take care of same as they came through. According to plaintiff's evidence she was standing at the north end of the machine at the usual place of her work and was in the act of starting the starching machine by pushing the belt from the idler to the operating pulley when the injury occurred.
The defendant's chief contention is that the court should have sustained a demurrer to the evidence. The defendant does not criticise the instructions given for plaintiff and all the instructions asked by defendant were given, but defendant says that there is no evidence to sustain the essential facts necessary to make plaintiff's case.
One of the essential facts which plaintiff must show is that the shafting was so placed as to be dangerous to the employees while engaged in ordinary duties. We think the evidence taken most favorably to plaintiff, as we must do, warrants a finding of this dangerous condition. The starching machine in question was located near the east wall of the building. The long way of the machine was north and south paralled with this wall. The power shaft also paralled this wall between it and the starching machine and was about ten inches from the floor and about the same distance from the wall. There is some conflict and the record is not clear just how close the line shaft came to this machine, but plaintiff's evidence is positive that when her dress caught in the shafting she was standing at the north end of the machine at the usual place of her work. "I was going to work right where I was at." The defendant chose to try the case by bringing the starching machine in question into the court room and there setting it up along the east wall, shafting, belt and all in substantially the same position, distances and conditions as it stood in the laundry. The plaintiff in the presence of the jury stood by this machine where she said she was standing when her dress caught in the revolving shaft and the injury occurred. She denied that she went on the east side of the machine, as defendant claimed, and thereby came in contact with the shaft. By this method of trial, the jury itself saw the location and proximity of the revolving shaft to plaintiff's place of work, the methods of of operating the machinery and the surrounding conditions. These matters are not fully reproduced here and facts which the jury knew by observation are not all in this record. If the plaintiff was, as the jury found, at the usual place of her work when her clothing was caught by the revolving shaft, that fact with the close proximity of the revolving shaft and other facts open to the jury's observation, may well have warranted a finding that the shaft was so placed as to be dangerous to persons working at the north end of the machine. It is said in Morgan v. Hinge Manufacturing Co., 120 Mo.App. 590, 606, 97 S.W. 638:
"It is apparent that if the vertical belt and the shaft rotating near the floor, were exposed to contact with the limbs or clothing of employees, they were dangerous; or, at least, that a jury might well infer as much."
The jury was in a better position to judge of this matter than that mentioned in Huss v. Heydt Bakery Co., 210 Mo. 44, 50, 108 S.W. 63, where it is said:
[Lore v. American Manufacturing Co., 160 Mo. 608, 61 S.W. 678.]
Nor can we say as a matter of law that this shafting was not dangerous to those engaged in their ordinary duties, but became dangerous to plaintiff only because she was attempting to shift the belt from the idler pulley to the operating pulley in order to start the machinery. Defendant's evidence is that this shifting of the belt was the proper work of a man at work in the laundry whom plaintiff should have called to do this, but plaintiff denies that any such instruction was given her and says that the girls that work there were accustomed to start the machinery by themselves shifting the belt, and that another woman had showed her how to do it with this particular machine. Plaintiff's forelady was present and observed plaintiff's doing this and made no objection. The statute in question was designed not only to protect workmen while actually performing the main task assigned, but also while doing those things naturally connected with and incidental to such task. [Martin v. Richmond Cotton Oil Co., 194 Mo.App. 106, 120, 184 S.W. 127; Hughes v. Marshall Contracting and Manufacturing Co., 188 Mo.App. 549, 556, 176 S.W. 534.]
Plaintiff testified and the jury found that plaintiff did not leave her usual and proper place of work and go to the east side of the machine into the place of danger in order to shift this belt. Moreover the shifting of the belt in no way caused her injury. That was not the proximate cause of her injury but merely furnished the condition. Had plaintiff been standing there eating her lunch, taking a drink of water or engaged in any diversion, not itself contributing to her injury, and had been injured by reason of the nearby, unguarded, revolving shaft, it could hardly be contended that she was not within the protection of the statute.
We may here also dispose of the contention that plaintiff used an improper and unsafe method of shifting the belting in that she did so with a stick instead of using a lever provided for that purpose at the other end of the machine. It was shown that this lever would not work because of an iron rod or pipe so placed as to prevent its use, but we again say that this injury did not result from any improper or unsafe method of shifting the belt. Had plaintiff been caught by the belt flying off, or by her coming in contact therewith or with the machinery operated by the belt, then she might be held to have brought about or contributed to her own injury.
The evidence, we think, abundantly shows that the power shaft at the place of the accident could have been safely guarded as the statute requires. This fact was also demonstrated to the jury by its seeing the whole machine and its surroundings but aside from that the plaintiff's evidence is that there were no other pulleys or belts that connected with this shaft at or near this place. It was also shown that until some two or three months previous to this accident this shaft had been boxed in with suitable openings at the belts effectually safeguarding it but when putting in a new floor defendant had failed to again box in or cover this shaft. If it could be and...
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