Case Name: William Hayes, an infant, by Guardian, App'lt, v. The Bush and Denslow Manufacturing Company, Resp't
Court: New York Supreme Court, General Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1886-07-23
Citations: 3 N.Y. St. Rep. 136
Docket Number: 
Parties: William Hayes, an infant, by Guardian, App’lt, v. The Bush and Denslow Manufacturing Company, Resp’t.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York State Reporter
Volume: 3
Pages: 136–137

Head Matter:
William Hayes, an infant, by Guardian, App’lt, v. The Bush and Denslow Manufacturing Company, Resp’t.
(Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department,
Filed July 23, 1886.)
Negligence—Disobedience op bules by employee—When bulb inope-
BA.TIVE.
Ordinarily disobedience of a rule by an employee would be negligence, but if the company prosecutes its work in a manner that renders a violation of the rule necessary or probable, or if it suffers and approves the habitual disregard of it, the rule is inoperative, and negligence will not be presumed, but the question should be submitted to the jury.
Appeal from a judgment at circuit dismissing the complaint.
Charles J. Patterson, for App’lt; Hascall & Bosebault, for Resp’t.

Opinion:
Cullen, J.
This action is brought by an employee to recover damages for personal injuries received while working on a press. The plaintiff's evidence tends to shows that the machine was defective, and that injury occurred from such defect. The complaint was dismissed at circuit because of the contributory negligence of the plaintiff.
The plaintiff, a boy of fifteen years, was employed feeding a press with strips of tin, out of which was stamped "bottoms;" twelve "bottoms" out of.each strip. While pushing the strip in under the punch or die for the last bottom, his finger passed under the punch, and the press being set in motion, he was injured. In the factory were conspicuous notices forbidding placing hands or fingers between the dies for any purpose. The evidence of the boy tended to show that it was necessary, in the ordinary prosecution of his work, to place his fingers under the punch when the last bottom of the strip was to be stamped, and that such was the ordinary custom in the factory.
We do not think the notice or printed rule conclusive on the question of the plaintiff's negligence. Ordinarily disobedience of a rule would be negligence, but if the defendant prosecuted the work in a manner that rendered a violation of the rule necessary or probable, or if they suffered and approved its habitual disregard, the rule was inoperative. We think the question of the plaintiff's negligence should have been submitted to the jury.
Judgment reversed, and new trial ordered; costs to abide event.
Barnard, P. J., and Dykeman, J., concur.