Volpe v. Hammersley Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 14 November 1921
• Parties: VOLPE v. HAMMERSLEY MFG. CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

115 A. 665

VOLPE

v. HAMMERSLEY MFG. CO.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Nov. 14, 1921.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Action by John Volpe, by Joseph Volpe, as next friend, against the Hammersley Manufacturing Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

The following is the per curiam opinion of the Supreme Court:

The plaintiff, a minor under 16 years of age, was a employe of the defendant company at its paper manufacturing plant in Garfield. While engaged at work on a large cylinder press on the evening of December 4, 1918, at about half past 8, the paper which was passing through the cylinders broke, and in attempting to stop the press his arm was caught in the flywheel and crushed. The present suit was brought to recover damages for the injury thus sustained, and the trial resulted in a verdict in his favor for $15,000.

The plaintiff, in order to secure employment at the defendant's plant, had represented himself to be over 16 years of age and submitted to the defendant's agent certain papers showing that he was over that age. He represented the papers to be his own, but they, in fact, belonged to a friend, from whom he had borrowed them for the purpose of exhibiting them to the defendant company's employing agent. That agent, believing the plaintiff's story that the papers were his and that he was over 16 years of age, hired him; and the proofs showed that, except for the deceit practiced, the plaintiff would not have been taken into the employ of the defendant company.

One of the contentions upon which the defendant rests its right to have the verdict sot aside is that the plaintiff is estopped by his fraud from claiming that he was under the statutory age, and that therefore his only remedy (if he has one) is that provided by the Workmen's Compensation Act (Laws 1911, p. 134, amended by Laws 1913, p. 309); but this contention has been settled adversely to the defendant by the cases of Feir v. Weil, 92 X. J. Law, 610, 106 Atl. 402, and Leskow v. Liondale Bleach, etc., Works, 93 N. J. Law, 4, 107 Atl. 275.

It is further contended that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence, for the reason that the proofs disclose almost conclusively that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence; but this contention also is in the face of the decisions just referred to. The Legislature has by inference declared that children who are too young to be put at work in factories, upon machines like that upon which plaintiff was working, cannot be guilty of contributory negligence, nor can they be held to have assumed the risks of the work.

Lastly it is urged that the verdict is excessive, and a careful consideration of the testimony leads us to the conclusion that this claim is justified. If the plaintiff will consent to reduce the verdict to $10,000, he may enter judgment for that amount; otherwise the...