Taylor v. Hennessey

• Decision Date: 25 November 1908
• Citation: 200 Mass. 263,86 N.E. 318
• Parties: TAYLOR v. HENNESSEY et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

200 Mass. 263

86 N.E. 318

TAYLOR v. HENNESSEY et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

November 25, 1908

COUNSEL

James

W. Sullivan, for plaintiff.

Matthews Thompson & Spring, for defendants.

OPINION

HAMMOND J.

So far as material to the question of the due care of the deceased the case stated by the counsel for the plaintiff in his opening was substantially as follows:

The deceased was a boy 14 years and 11 months old at the time of the accident. He had been at work upon the premises a week for one Demaris, who was working by the job at relasting shoes for the defendants, who owned and controlled the factory. He had worked previously for some weeks in another factory of the defendants. His duty was to carry racks of shoes to and from Demaris, who worked on the third floor, and for this purpose he used the elevator. About 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the day of the accident he went upstairs upon the elevator, as he had done many times during the week, in the performance of his duty. Upon arriving at the desired floor, he got out of the elevator on to the floor, and spoke a word or two with one La Chappelle, who was working on that floor 12 or 15 feet from the elevator well. The last that La Chappelle saw of the boy he (the boy) had hold of a rack of shoes and was walking bachward towards the well, drawing the rack after him. He had got within two feet of the well when La Chappelle turned back to his work, but immediately heard a loud noise and cry. The boy had fallen into the well, and was fatally injured.

So far as material, the elevator and gate were described as follows 'The gate * * * as originally installed was a balance gate. That is, it was a gate which when thrown up it ran in a groove.' It consisted of two bars with cross-pieces. As originally constructed the gate, when thrown up, would be held up by a weight connected with it as a balance, like a window weight, but some time before the accident the top bar had been broken and an extra piece had been nailed on, making the gate heavier, so that, when thrown up, it sometimes stayed up and sometimes fell down of its own weight. The elevator and gate had been in this condition for several months. The plaintiff's evidence did not show whether immediately after the accident the gate was up or down. Except as above stated, there was nothing on the elevator to tell when it was taken away from the floor, 'there was no...