Trebbe v. American Steel Foundries

• Decision Date: 30 March 1916
• Docket Number: No. 17240.,17240.
• Citation: 185 S.W. 179
• Parties: TREBBE v. AMERICAN STEEL FOUNDRIES.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

185 S.W. 179

TREBBE v. AMERICAN STEEL FOUNDRIES.

No. 17240.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

March 30, 1916.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; George H. Shields, Judge.

Action by Herman Trebbe against the American Steel Foundries. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Lehmann & Lehmann, of St. Louis, for appellant. M. M. Sale and David Goldsmith, both of St. Louis, for respondent.

BLAIR, J.

Respondent was employed as a finisher and molder, and brought this action in the St. Louis city circuit court for damages for injuries he received while at work in one of appellant's foundries. He was struck by a heavy beam which was thrown from a hook on an air hoist operated by other employés. The appeal is from a judgment for respondent for $8,000.

Respondent worked upon what is called the molding floor, and was engaged in finishing molds. Some 25 feet away was the pouring floor, upon which the finished molds were set preparatory to the pouring of molten metal into them. Some distance from respondent and away from the pouring floor were ramming machines, used in the initial process of preparing molds. The men operating these machines were called rammers. Employés designated as helpers aided the rammers. Upon the pouring floor employés called chainmen worked in conjunction with cranemen who operated electric cranes which ran upon tracks constructed above the various floors and running practically the full length of the building, 300 feet.

In the process of molding a metal flask or casing was put upon a ramming machine, and in the lower part of the flask called the drag, was placed a pattern of the casting to be made. Inside the flask and around the pattern sand was rammed by the machine until it hardened about the pattern, which was then withdrawn, and the flask with the sand was removed by an air hoist to the molding floor, upon which respondent and others did the finishing work, removing loose sand, if any, and putting in cores for the purpose of shaping the mold so desired apertures, projections, or indentations, and the like, in the casting, would take form when the metal was poured into the mold. This could not ordinarily be done by the use of patterns. After respondent and his colaborers finished the work, the molds, or flasks containing the molds, were conveyed by the electric cranes to the pouring floor and placed in a line or circle, and copes or tops placed on them. When this had been done, an electric crane brought from the furnace a ladle containing 16 to 30 tons of molten metal, and the flasks or molds would be poured; i. e., the metal, would be poured through a hole in the cope and upper part of the flask, called the gate, into the lower part of the flask or drag, the portion containing the actual mold which shaped the casting. The usual practice was, when the metal had cooled sufficiently, for the electric cranemen to "strip the copes," i. e., remove the tops, and then the chainmen fastened chains, attached to an electric crane, to a protruding sprig of metal, also called a gate, and the castings were then pulled out of the flask by the electric crane and conveyed to a car or the chipping room. Then the electric crane would "hook on" to the empty flask and convey it to the floor near the ramming machines; thence it was lifted by the air hoist and placed upon the ramming machine, and the process began again. At times when there was haste the electric craneman would "hook on" to the flask and convey it with the casting in it to the molding floor and near the air hoist, and when this was done and the craneman did not return and pull out or shake out the casting, the helpers sometimes used the air hoist to shake out castings.

On the occasion on which respondent was injured the electric crane had deposited a flask with the casting and sand still in it upon the floor some 8 to 12 feet from where respondent was working. This flask and contents weighed about 1,500 pounds, and the casting in it weighed about 800 pounds. The sand in the flask also weighed heavily. The helpers undertook to use the air hoist to shake out the casting. This air hoist was attached to a boom or a "jib boom" several feet long, which consisted of a beam extending at right angles from the top of an upright which work on a pivot. An arc 22 feet in length was described by the end of the boom when it was swung as far as possible. Braces from the bottom of the upright ran to a point near the center of the horizontal beam or boom and thus supported it. Suspended from a contrivance constructed so as to run on wheels on top of the boom hung the air hoist. This is described as a drum about 6 or 7 feet long, containing a piston operated by admitting below it compressed air. When the air was allowed to escape, the piston descended by its own weight; when air was admitted, the piston was driven upward, carrying with it a rod extending from the lower end of the piston, and having attached upon its own lower extremity an open hook. Upon this hook, and constituting a part of the appliance employed in lifting flasks, hung a heavy beam of wood and iron, upon each end of which was what is termed a sling designed for fastening to the knobs upon the flasks. This beam had a metal "strap," the ends of which were fastened about 2 feet apart, each about one foot from the center of the beam, which was several feet long. This strap was an iron or steel strip, and, in place upon the beam, resembled somewhat an inverted letter V, the two ends being fastened to the beam, as described above, and the point or angle of the inverted V-shaped strap being hung on the hook extending down from the air hoist. When the beam was thus hung, the bottom of the hook was somewhere from 4 to 6 inches from the top of the beam between the ends of the strap. A better understanding is obtained from the drawing offered in evidence and which accompanies this opinion.

NOTE: OPINION CONTAINING TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE

On the occasion mentioned the helpers, as stated, undertook to shake out the casting already described. They attached the flask containing the sand and heavy casting to the beam suspended from the hook in the air hoist and applied the air. The flask was lifted, sand, casting, and all, and then the 800-pound casting dropped out. It is a fair inference from the record that some of the sand also fell out. In lifting the flask it was necessary to apply sufficient force to cause the piston to raise the entire weight of 1,500 pounds. When, as intended, the sand and casting fell out, the lifting force, suddenly being relieved of considerably more than half the weight it was lifting, drove the piston as suddenly to or near to the top of the drum. The iron strap flew or jumped off the hook, and the beam fell, striking and injuring respondent, who was working on a mold 12 feet from the center of the beam and about 6 feet from its nearest end at the time it was put in motion by the application of the air.

An additional and more detailed statement of portions of the evidence, necessitated by the character of questions presented, appears in the opinion.

I. The trial court's refusal to direct a verdict for appellant is assigned as error. Upon this question the controlling principle is that substantial evidence tending to prove the cause of action requires the submission of the case to the jury. Enloe v. Car & Foundry Co., 240 Mo. loc. cit. 448, 144 S. W. 852; Koerner v. St. Louis Car Co., 209 Mo. loc. cit. 151, 107 S. W. 481, 17 L. R. A. (N. S.) 292. Further, in determining whether the record discloses substantial evidence tending to prove the cause of action —

"the court is required to make every inference of fact in favor of the party offering the evidence which a jury might with any degree of propriety have inferred in his favor," and "is not at liberty * * * to make inferences of fact in favor of the defendant, to countervail or overthrow either presumptions of law or inferences of fact in favor of the plaintiff; that would clearly be usurping the province of the jury." Buesching v. Gaslight Co., 73 Mo. loc. cit. 231, 39 Am. Rep. 503.

There is ample evidence the regular proceeding was for electric cranes to be used to shake out the castings, and to do this on the pouring floor, and then place the empty flasks at a point near the air hoist; that the air hoist was designed and installed to lift thence such empty flasks, and, swinging around, place them upon the ramming machines, and, after the molds were "rammed," to remove them from the machines and deliver them upon the molding floor to be finished; that the use of the air hoist to shake castings out of flasks was exceptional and dangerous. The superintendent in charge at the time respondent was injured testified concerning the removal of castings that the usual place for that was upon the pouring floor; that when they "were short of flasks" the cranes "threw them in" or "delivered them in to the rammers," whether there was a...