Tucker & Dorsey Manufacturing Company v. Staley

• Decision Date: 12 April 1907
• Docket Number: 5,969
• Citation: 80 N.E. 975,40 Ind.App. 63
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court
• Parties: TUCKER & DORSEY MANUFACTURING COMPANY v. STALEY

80 N.E. 975

40 Ind.App. 63

TUCKER & DORSEY MANUFACTURING COMPANY v. STALEY

No. 5,969

Court of Appeals of Indiana

April 12, 1907

From Superior Court of Marion County (68,363); Vinson Carter Judge.

Action by John T. Staley against the Tucker & Dorsey Manufacturing Company. From a judgment for plaintiff defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

John B Elam and James W. Fesler, for appellant.

Frank P. Baker, M. A. Ryan and John C. Ruckelshaus, for appellee.

OPINION

ROBY, P. J.

Action by appellee. The complaint was in one paragraph. Appellant answered it by general denial. The issue thus joined was tried by a jury, which returned a verdict for appellee, with answers to eighty-five interrogatories. Its motion for judgment on the answers to interrogatories was overruled, and an exception reserved. It then filed its motion for a new trial, which was also overruled, to which action it excepted. Judgment was then rendered upon the verdict for $ 1,250. The errors assigned challenge the correctness of the ruling upon each of said motions.

It is averred in the complaint that appellee was injured by reason of his hand's coming in contact with a circular saw operated by appellant in a factory and mill where he was working as its employe. The negligence charged is that appellant had failed to protect said saw with any guard or covering, as it should have done.

Appellant's proposition in support of its motion for judgment on the answers to the interrogatories, notwithstanding the general verdict, are that such answers show that the negligence complained of was not the proximate cause of the injury, and that appellee was contributorily negligent in failing to give reasonable attention to the movement of his hands. Proximate cause and contributory negligence are both primarily questions of fact, and the presumptions which attend the general verdict can only be overthrown, as has been frequently declared, when the specific facts exhibited are inconsistent with any hypothesis which might have been proved under the issues. The purpose of the legislature in enacting the statute requiring dangerous machinery to be guarded was to prevent accident. Given, the absence of a proper guard and an injury to an employe coming in contact with a circular saw, the finding that the absence of such guard was the proximate cause of the injury is not unwarranted. To hold that the absence of such guard cannot be the proximate cause of an injury so received would be to destroy the statute. That other causes contribute and assist in bringing about the accident will not relieve the negligent employer from liability. Espenlaub v. Ellis (1904), 34 Ind.App. 163, 72 N.E. 527. A proper guard might not have prevented the injury, but the finding is otherwise. That some one might come in contact with unguarded saws was so probable that the legislature passed an act requiring them to be guarded. So far as the question of proximate cause is concerned, it is not necessary that appellant should have anticipated the particular injury which resulted. Davis v. Mercer Lumber Co. (1905), 164 Ind. 413, 73 N.E. 899. It is quite sufficient that the performance of the statutory duty might, and as the jury found would, have prevented it. The question, as before stated, was one of fact, and no amount of logic authorizes us to disregard the verdict. Chicago, etc., R. Co. v. Martin (1903), 31 Ind.App. 308, 65 N.E. 591; Windeler v. Rush County Fair Assn. (1901), 27 Ind.App. 92, 59 N.E. 209; Davis v. Mercer Lumber Co., supra. Appellee was not required to exercise the best possible judgment. The care which an ordinarily prudent man would have exercised under the same circumstances was required of him. Baltimore, etc., R. Co. v. Cavanaugh (1905), 35 Ind.App. 32, 71 N.E. 239. The answers are not inconsistent with the exercise of such care, and the court did not error in overruling the motion for judgment.

The same propositions are argued in support of the second error assigned. That the accident might not have happened had the saw been guarded, as the statute required it should be, and as the findings show it could have been, is evident, and the verdict is therefore not without support.

There is evidence that appellee was giving undivided attention to his work, and the mere fact that it was within his knowledge that the saw was not guarded does not establish contributory negligence. Davis Coal Co. v Polland (1902), 158 Ind. 607, 62 N.E. 492. Nor does...