Tyson v. Long Mfg. Co.
Decision Date | 25 February 1959 |
Docket Number | No. 97,97 |
Citation | 78 A.L.R.2d 588,249 N.C. 557,107 S.E.2d 170 |
Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Parties | , 78 A.L.R.2d 588 Myrna E. TYSON, by her Next Friend, Joab L. Tyson, v. LONG MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Inc.; and Frank Allen and W. A. Allen, t/a Farmville Implement Company. |
Charles H. Whedbee and James & Speight, Greenville, for plaintiff, appellant.
Sam B. Underwood, Jr., Greenville, and Henry C. Bourne, Tarboro, for defendants, appellees.
Plaintiff's thumb on her left hand was injured on 22 July 1955, while she was looping tobacco as an employee of Carlton Young on a Silent Flame Tobacco Harvester manufactured by the defendant Long Manufacturing Company, Inc., and sold to Carlton Young or his father by the defendant Farmville Implement Company.
Plaintiff's injuries occurred while the tobacco harvester being driven across a tobacco field by Carlton Young was in operation harvesting green tobacco leaves from the stalk. This machine was 12 1/2 feet high, and about 6 feet above the ground. It had a platform 10 feet wide and 14 feet long. Four people were on the machine under the platform pulling the tobacco leaves from the stalk. Plaintiff and Christine Hall were standing on the platform on opposite sides of the conveyor chain looping the tobacco leaves, when they reached them. The machine operated on a continuous chain principle. This conveyor chain made horizontal runs over a sprocket at the back of the machine to a sprocket at the front, passing by the loopers. When the four people on the machine under the platform pulled the tobacco leaves from the stalk, they put them in clips holding a bundle of tobacco leaves attached to the conveyor chain. The clips were about 20 inches apart on plaintiff's side of the conveyor chain. They alternated on the opposite side. A stick some 12 or 18 inches lower than the horizontal run of the conveyor chain was between it and the loopers. The loopers' work was done when the conveyor chain passed them on its horizontal run.
This is plaintiff's testimony as to how her injury occurred:
Plaintiff at the time of her injury was 17 years old. She had been looping tobacco on a tobacco harvester or under a looping shed 3 or 4 years. She had worked on this tobacco harvester most of the summer in 1955, when they were putting in tobacco, and was familiar with its operation. She testified on cross-examination:
When the tobacco harvester is in operation in a tobacco field, it moves slowly.
In substance these are plaintiff's allegations of negligence: The Silent Flame Tobacco Harvester was negligently constructed in that it had a sprocket with holes large enough for a person's thumb to be inserted therein and inadequately guarded, that the sprocket and guard were so constructed that the imminent danger therein was not readily observable and appreciated by a reasonably prudent person, and constituted a concealed danger, which was the proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries. That such negligence of the manufacturer, Long Manufacturing Company, Inc., was imputed to the seller, its co-defendant Farmville Implement Company.
In Campo v. Scofield, 301 N.Y. 468, 95 N.E.2d 802, 803, the Court said: The first sentence quoted from this New York case is quoted by 'this Court in Kientz v. Carlton, 245 N.C. 236, 241, 96 S.E.2d 14, 18.
In the Campo v. Scofield case, plaintiff working on his son's farm, was engaged in feeding onions into an 'onion topping' machine, when his hands became caught in revolving steel rollers and were badly injured. He sued upon the theory that the manufacturer was negligent in not providing guards. The Court held that the complaint failed to state a cause of action. The gist of the holding is that a manufacturer is under no duty to protect the user against a danger which is perfectly obvious. The Court said:
In Yaun v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 253 Wis. 558, 34 N.W.2d 853, 856, plaintiff, a farm hand, was injured when he slipped without negligence and fell so that his fingers were caught in the unguarded rollers of a pick-up hay baler manufactured by the defendant. The supervisor of inspectors for the Industrial...
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