Case ID: ohio-cc-ns_14/html/0425-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

INJURY TO EMPLOYE BY A SAW.
    Circuit Court of Hamilton County.
    The Standard Millwork Co. v. Wm. H. Bick, a Minor.
    Decided, December 23, 1911.
    
      Negligence — Master and Servant — Independent Contractor — Liability for Injury to Employe Where There Was'a Presumption of Negligence on the Part of the Master Which Was Not Refuted.
    
    1. Where there is evidence creating a presumption of negligence on the part of a master, directly contributing to the injury to plaintiff, and no evidence is offered in refutation thereof, a judgment for damages in favor of the injured employe will not -be set aside on the ground of weight of evidence.
    2. One is not an independent contractor who operates a part of a manufacturing plant, under an arrangement whereby he is to hire and pay and have entire control of all the employes at work in that portion of the plant, and the owner is to furnish the material for manufacture together-with the use of the plant.
    The defendant in error recovered a judgment below of $2,500, on account of the loss of his left hand in .a saw, operated in the factory of the Standard Millwork Company in Norwood. At the time of the accident one E. B. Swartz was operating a part of the factory for the construction of a certain kind of window blinds and shutters, under a contract that the company should furnish the plant, machinery, lubricating oil and material, and Swartz was to employ and pay all the employes, the company to have no control or supervision over them.
    
      Albert Bettinger and Walter Schmitt, for plaintiff in error.
    
      T. B. Snyder and Thos. L. Michie, contra.
    Jones, J.; Smith, P. J., and Swing, J., concur.
   There is evidence in this case supporting the allegation of the petition charging negligence in starting the saw, while the boy had his hand in the blow-pipe cleaning it, and that the saw was started without any notice or warning.

Such evidence per se raises a presumption of negligence on the part of the master and places upon him* the burden of removing such presumption. No evidence was offered to explain the starting of the saw, and such presumption was in no way refuted.

The trial court correctly charged that Swartz was not an independent contractor, and we find the general charge in all other respects correct.

. There was no error in the refusal to give special charges requested by defendant below.

Special charge number 11 (refused) is defective only in that it does not predicate its statement of law upon the condition that the jury find that the saw was in motion when plaintiff placed his hand in the blow-pipe.

With the saw motionless there was no apparent danger.

We find the judgment works substantial justice between the parties and there being no error it is affirmed.