Thompson v. United Laboratories Co.
| Decision Date | 22 May 1915 |
| Citation | 221 Mass. 276,108 N.E. 1042 |
| Parties | THOMPSON v. UNITED LABORATORIES CO. (two cases). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
John F. Neal, of Boston, for plaintiffs.
Sawyer Hardy, Stone & Morrison, of Boston (Edward C. Stone, of Boston, of counsel), for defendant.
These two cases were tried together, one by the minor plaintiff who sued for personal injuries received by her while in the employ of the defendant, and the other for loss of services and expenses. They are considered together, as the right of the father is dependent upon the right of his daughter. Regan v. Keighley Metal Ceiling & Roofing Co., 220 Mass. 261, 107 N.E. 984. The only exceptions taken at the trial were to the refusal of the presiding judge to direct a verdict for the defendant. Hence the only question presented to this court is whether in any aspect of the evidence the jury were warranted in finding the defendant guilty and the plaintiff not guilty of negligence which caused the injury complained of.
The jury were warranted in finding that the minor plaintiff, born August 29, 1894, entered the employ of the defendant in its dry filling department in March, 1911; that after she had worked in this department from March, 1911, until July 17, 1911, on the last named day she was transferred to the rat poison filling department in the basement; that this department occupied spaces cleared temporarily among the packing cases which reached almost to the ceiling; that the windows there were high up and nailed so that they could not be opened; and that the only ventilation was from a door some 50 feet away, which was not always open; that the rat poison contained 19.05 per cent. of arsenic; that as used it gave off a dust at times sufficient to cause the girls' hair to appear white and sometimes they wore paper caps to keep it out of their hair; that it was volatile and might be inhaled easily under the conditions existing in this department. During the months of July, September, October and December, 1911, the plaintiff worked at intervals nearly five full days in this last named department. The work consisted in placing the loose arsenical powder in two-ounce cans, and from 2,000 to 4,000 cans were filled each day, 'enough arsenic, if taken internally, to make a fatal dose for over 80,000 people.' When directed to work on rat poison she 'inquired whether it was poisonous or not and was told by the forelady, 'No; it was like the other insect powders' (which, from defendant's formulas, contained no ingredients that would be poisonous).'
The plaintiff testified that no other warning was given her, and no testimony appears in the record to the effect that this statement was not true. One Hadley, the superintendent of the defendant's factory, testified:
'That he knew, before plaintiff was put to work on the poison, that it contained a considerable percentage of arsenic, which he knew was poisonous; that he prepared a label calling it deadly poison; that he frequently saw the girls working on the poison in the basement; that it never occurred to him that it might be inhaled, or that minors might be ignorant of the possible results that might follow from inhaling it; that he himself gave, or caused to be given, no warnings to any employés about how the same should be handled to avoid injury to themselves; that he simply told the foreman of the department to 'inform them to be a little careful'; that no special instructions were given about warning young girls; that he considered it the duty of the foreman to do this himself, and not to delegate it to the forelady; that respirators were furnished men who worked on mixing antiseptic and nonpoisonous powders, but none was given to the 16 to 17 year old girls who were put to work on rat poison; that no fans or suction blasts that might draw off the poisonous dust were furnished because he 'didn't think they were necessary'; that the only chance that there would be that plaintiff would be warned was through the foreman; that no notices, except as aforesaid, were posted or given the employés; that he later told plaintiff's father that she couldn't have been poisoned in the dry filling department.'
The foreman, Hilton, testified that:
'He knew arsenic was poisonous, that the work [of] filling the cans with rat poison was rather dusty,' and 'that he never warned Miss Thompson [the minor plaintiff] personally, as to any danger that might arise from working on rat poison.'
William H. Warren, a witness for the plaintiff, testified:
'That he had been educated at Harvard and Heidelberg Universities; that he had received the degree of Ph. D. from Harvard University in chemistry; that he had served as managing chemist for some years in a large wholesale and manufacturing chemical house in New York; that he had been professor of chemistry in Washington University, and now held a similar chair in Wheaton College; that he had specialized in poisons; that he had made tests of the mixture in question in this case and found that it was volatile and might be inhaled easily under the circumstances described as those under which plaintiff worked;' and 'that from his experience he considered the conditions described as those under which she worked were unsafe.'
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