Case Name: FINALYSON v. UTICA MINING & MILLING CO.
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1895-03-28
Citations: 67 F. 507
Docket Number: No. 474
Parties: FINALYSON v. UTICA MINING & MILLING CO.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter
Volume: 67
Pages: 507–521

Head Matter:
FINALYSON v. UTICA MINING & MILLING CO.
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
March 28, 1895.)
No. 474.
S. Master and Servant—Rule of Safe Place.
The rule requiring a master to provide a reasonably safe place in which his servant may perform his service does not apply to eases in which the very work the servant is employed to do consists in making a dangerous place .safe, or in constantly changing the character of the place for safety, as the work progresses, but in such cases the servant assumes the risk of the dangerous place, and of the increase of danger caused by the work.
A Same—Fall of Earth in Mine.
In an action, against a mining company for negligently causing the death of one F., it appeared that F., while at work in preparing a place to set a timber to make a level in a mine safe for tbe -workmen, had. been killed by a fall of a mass of earth that was uncovered by a blast fired a short time before by a miner named A. After the blast A. worked with a pick for an hour to get this mass down, and was about to blast it down when the foreman came along, and A. told him that this was a treacherous chunk, and he replied that he could get it down, and took a pick and tried in vain to do so. The foreman then said that there was lots of time and that they would lose the smelting ore in sight if they blasted it down then, and both men went to work picking up and sacking ore .alongside of the mass of earth, where, if it fell, it must strike them unless.they could fortunately jump from under it. About twenty minutes after they commenced to pick up and sack the ore, F. came along to timber the level, and asked the foreman where he should cut the notch for the next stull, and the foreman pointed to a place lower than and a little to one side of the mass that fell. F. sat down directly under the mass of earth which fell, and commenced to drill the notch, and after he had drilled in the wall for about half an hour the mass fell and killed him and injured A. KM, that there was not sufficient evidence of negligence of the defendant to sustain a verdict for the plaintiff. Caldwell, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
In Error to tlie Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Colorado.
This was an action by Mary Finalyson against the Utica Mining & Milling Company to recover damages for causing the death of plaintiff’s husband. The circuit court directed a verdict for the defendant. Plaintiff brings error.
On March 28, 1893, Daniel Finalyson, who was in the employment of the Utica Mining & Milling Company, a corporation, the defendant in error in this case, was so injured by the fall of a mass of sticky mud and other material weighing about 1,200 pounds, which composed a portion of a vein in the Utica mine and is called gouge, that he died. Mary Finalyson, the plaintiff in error, is the widow of Daniel, and she brought this action under the statutes of Colorado to recover damages for the alleged negligence of the company that she averred caused this death. The negligence she alleges in her petition is that the entry in the mine where Finalyson was at work was imperfectly constructed, unsafe, and defectively timbered; that it was the duty of the company to prepare a safely-timbered place, and to keep and maintain the entry in good repair and order, or the timbers thereof in such good repair and quantity as to protect the lives of Finalyson and his co-laborers, but that the company conducted itself so negligently in the procurement and erection of timbers to be used in said mine, and in the preparation of places where the miners were compelled to work, as to leave the place where Finalyson was to work in an unfit and dangerous condition; that the company knew of this condition, and that this negligence caused the injury. These allegations were denied by the answer.
The evidence disclosed the following facts: A level called the 400-foot level had been driven in this mine, and the miners were stoping the ore from the roof of this level. Holes were drilled and charged with explosives, which were fired, and in that way the ore bodies were shot down and fell into the level below, or upon a staging built over it. The original roof of this level was about seven feet above its floor, and when the miners had shot down the material as high as they could conveniently work from the level itself and the material that accumulated in' it, they constructed of timbers a staging or second floor, about six feet above the bottom of the level, so that the men could work in the drift below this floor while those above it were stoping down the ore higher up in the vein.. After ore bodies had been removed to a considerable height, the workmen erected at convenient distances upright posts at each end of a mudsill, which was laid across the floor of the level, placed a cap upon these posts, and then laid a flooring of light sticks of timber from cap to cap. The miners then worked in the drift below this flooring removing the material that had accumulated there, and passing to and fro, while those above it were taking out the ore bodies from the vein above. This timbering had been completed along this level to within 25 feet of the place of the accident. From this point to a place within 8 feet of the place of the accident, stalls or heavy timbers, the ends of which rested‘in notches cut in the respective wails of the vein, had been placed across this level, and upon these the light sticks of timber had been', placed to make the necessary flooring. Up to this point, 8 feet distant from the place of the accident, the ore bodies in the vein had been taken down to a height varying from 20 to 05 feet from the floor of the level. In this space of 8 feet the workmen were engaged in shooting down the ore from the original roof of the level, and putting in the timbering, working forward along this roof as fast as the ore bodies were removed to a height beyond their reach. Within this 8 feet the level below had become tilled with materials that had fallen from above to a height of 6 feet, so that the workmen could stand upon this material to take out the ore bodies along the roof. One Iteed was the superintendent of the company, and one Talbert was the underground foreman, who hired and discharged men, and told them when and where to work and what to do. In the forenoon of the day of the accident one Austin, a fellow servant of Finalyson, put a blast into the breast of this stoplng just above the original roof of the level, and shot down a body of material. When he returned after dinner, he discovered for the first time that this blast had opened up on the foot wall of the vein, just where the roof had been, a mass of gouge 3 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 18 inches thick. This mass had not been visible until after the morning blast had been fired. Austin took his pick, and worked at it for nearly an hour, but could not get it down, and was about to get bis drills and hammer to shoot it down, when the foreman, Talbert, came along, and Austin told him that this was a treacherous looking chunk. Talbert said: “You can get that down.” Austin said ho could not Talbert then took a pick, and tried to get it down himself, but he could not. He then remarked: “There is lots of time; if we shoot that, we lose the smelting ore that is alongside of it.” Thereupon both men went to work picking up and sacking the ore. They worked, so close to this inass of gouge that if it fell it must, inevitably fall upon their bodies, unless they fortunately jumped from under it, but Austin testified that he was not satisfied, and thought it might fall at any time. Finalyson had been at work in this mine for two years. He was employed in any work required to he done in the mine, but generally worked at timbering, because he was more apt than others at that work.- About 20 minutes after Austin and Talbert had tried to get this gouge down, Finalyson came along, asked Talbert where he should cut the hitch or notch for the next stall so as to have it on a level with those already in place, and Talbert pointed to a place on the foot wall a. little lower than, and a little to one side of, this gouge,—a place that was neither in nor under it. Finalyson then cleared away a place, and sat down with his back and shoulders against this chunk, and commenced to drill in the foot wall a place for the notch. After he had drilled away in this wall for half an hour the mass of gouge fell upon and injured him. Upon this state of facts the court below held that, there was no evidence of negligence on the part of the company, directed a verdict in its favor, and entered judgment accordingly. This ruling is the error assigned.
H. B. Johnson, for plaintiff in error.
Willard Teller, Harper M. Orahood, and Edward B. Morgan, for defendant in error.
Before CALDWELL, SANBORN, and THAYER, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
SANBORN, Circuit Judge,
after stating the facts, delivered the opinion of the court.
In granting the motion of the mining company to direct a verdict in its favor, Judge Hallett, who tried this case in the court below, declared that it was immaterial in his opinion whether the foreman was or was not a vice principal of the company, and that if he had been its president there would have been no evidence of negligence in this case that would warrant a verdict against the company. We have been forced to the conclusion that this ruling was right on two .grounds: (1) Because the ordinary rule of "safe place" cannot be justly applied to this case; and (2) because there is no evidence in the case that would warrant a verdict that the company or the foreman was guilty of actionable negligence.
It is tbe general rule that it is the duty of the master to exercise •ordinary care to provide a reasonably safe place in which the servant may perform his service. Railway Co. v. Jarvi, 53 Fed. 65, 3 C. C. A. 433, 10 U. S. App. 439. But this rule cannot be justly applied to cases in which the very work the servants are employed to do consists in making a dangerous place safe, or in constantly changing the character of the place for safety as the work progresses. The duty of the master does not extend to keeping such a place safe at «very moment of time as the work progresses. The servant assumes the ordinary risks and dangers of his employment that are known to him, and those that might be known to him by tbe exercise of ordinary care and foreseight. When he engages in the work of making a place that is known to be dangerous, safe, or in a work that in its progress necessarily changes the character for safety of the place in which it is performed as the work progresses, the hazard of the dangerous place and the increased hazard of the place made dangerous by the work are the ordinary and known dangers of such a place, and by bis acceptance of the employment the servant necessarily assumes them. Armour v. Hahn, 111 U. S. 313, 318, 4 Sup. Ct. 433; City of Minneapolis v. Lundin, 58 Fed. 525, 529, 7 C. C. A. 344, 19 U. S. App. 245; Railway Co. v. Jackson, 12 C. C. A. 507, 65 Fed. 48. In Armour v. Hahn, supra, the foreman of the carpenters at work upon a building in process of erection directed two of them to push a joist out to the end of timbers which rested upon and projected 16 inches beyond , the wall of tbe building. One of the carpenters in obeying this order stepped on the projecting part of one of tbe timbers, which tipped up, and he fell, and was injured. Mr. Justice Gray, in delivering the opinion of the supreme court, said:
"There is no evidence tending to prove any negligence on the part of the firm of which the defendant was a member, or of their superintendent, or of the foreman of the gang of carpenters. Tbe obligation of a master to provide reasonably safe places and structures for his servants to work upon does not impose upon him the duty, as towards them, of keeping a building, which they are employed in erecting, in a safe condition at every moment of their work, so far as its safety depends upon the due performance of that work by them and their fellows."
In City of Minneapolis v. Lundin, supra, a servant was hurt while at work in the construction of a sewer, because tbe place in which he was injured had been made dangerous by tbe prosecution of the work. This court declared that:
"The comparative safety of the place where each man worked was necessarily constantly varied by the progress of tbe work, and tbe duty of tbe master did not extend to keeping every place where each workman labored safe at every moment of its progress."
And in Railway Co. v. Jackson, supra, a servant was employed by a railroad company to assist in taking up and removing a railroad track in the night to save the railroad from the encroachments of a flood in a river. He was injured by the stumble and fall of a co-workman over some obstruction on the surface of the ground, as they, with others, were hurriedly carrying a rail away from the dismantled track. He complained that the company was negligent in furnishing a safe place, because it bad not sufficiently lighted the place in which he was working, and had permitted the surface of the ground to he covered with unnecessary obstructions. But this court held that the doctrine of "safe place" had no application to this case, and declared that:
"It frequently happens that, men are employed to tear down buildings or other structures, or to repair them after they have become insecure, or, it may be, that the work undertaken by the employé is of a kind that is calculated to render the premises or place of performance for the time being to some extent insecure. In cases such as these the servant undoubtedly assumes the increased hazard growing ont of the defective or insecure condition of the place where he is required to exercise his calling, and the doctrine above stated cannot be properly applied."
These cases warrant the instruction given by the court below. Austin and Pinalyson were engaged in sloping ont ore and timbering the space opened by tbe sloping. The Wasting necessarily made the place opened by it insecure. There was constant danger of the fall o f material loosened by the blast. The mass which fell was not visible or dangerous until the morning blast disclosed it. Not only this, but it was probably the very work of making this place safe, that Pinalyson himself performed, that was the immediate cause of the accident. The gouge had resisted the efforts of woxkmen with picks, but it was doubtless loosened from its place by tbe jarring of the foot wall apon which it rested by Pinalyson's drilling. It was not the negligence of the company or its foreman, but the necessary progress of ibis work, that made the place dangerous, and the dangers from the fall of these loosened materials, which some one must take in order that the timber should be placed in the mine at all, Pinalyson voluntarily assumed when he entered upon this employment.
The case of Railway Co. v. Jarvi, 3 C. C. A. 433, 53 Fed. 65, 70, cited by appellant, was not of this character. In that case a miner, who was working about a hundred yards from the place in which lie was injured, went out through a passageway to get a car, and was injured by a rock which fell from the roof of the slope as he was passing under it. It was necessary for him to pass under this roof to get his cars and to go to and from Ms work. The railway company knew that this roof was composed of treacherous rock, and that it was a roof that might possibly fall and that needed watching. The only way such a roof could be properly tested was by sounding it with the hand or with a pick or cane, and there was no evidence that this roof had been so tested for weeks. Upon this state of facts this court held that there was some evidence of negligence on the part of the company, and applied to the case the rule of "safe place." Bui the roof which fell in that case had long been completed by the rail way company, and was furnished to Jarvi as a safe cover for a way through which Ms duties required him to pass. He had no work to perform in making it safe, or in changing the character for safety in which the company furnished and maintained it. On the other hand, in the case at bar Austin and Finalyson were engaged in removing ore from the breast of the stope, and in making the place from which it was removed safe for subsequent work. The very timbering upon which Finalyson was engaged was the work of making a place safe that was necessarily made dangerous by the progress of the work. The complaint in this case is that the master was negligent because it did not, before Finalyson commenced to timber, safely timber and make safe a place necessarily made dangerous by the prbgress of the work, which it had employed Finalyson himself and his fellow servants to make safe. In other words, the complaint is that the master was negligent because it did not render unnecessary the work it employed the servant to do, before he commenced to do it. The distinction between this and the Jarvi Case is marked and clear, and in our opinion it brings it squarely within the other class of cases to which we have already referred. •
There is another reason wrky this case is not ruled by the Jarvi Case, and it is that this record discloses no evidence of negligence of the company or its foreman that would warrant a verdict. The negligence which charged the railway company in the Jarvi Case was its failure to inspect and sound with the hand or with a pick or cane the roof of a finished way through which its employés were constantly passing. There was no such negligence in the case at bar. Both the foreman and the man who was engaged in blasting tested with a pick the mass which fell upon Finalyson, and strove vigorously but in vain to bring it down, within an hour of the accident that befell him. It is only an injury that could have been foreseen and reasonably anticipated as the natural and probable result of an act of negligence that is actionable. Railway Co. v. Elliott, 5 C. C. A. 347, 55 Fed. 949; Railway Co. v. Kellogg, 94 U. S. 469; Hoag v. Railroad Co., 85 Pa. St. 293, 298, 299.
Who that had tried with a pick to break off from the foot wall and bring down this 1,200 pounds of earth, and had tried in vain, could have reasonably anticipated that it would fall of its own weight within an hour? It is true that one witness, Austin, says that he was not satisfied with the trial, and thought it might fall at any time, but he testifies that he did not after the trial make this statement to the foreman nor to Finalyson. The following is a portion of his cross-examination :
"Q. From tlie time you went there, one o'clock to two o'clock, what were you doing? A. I was picking down the shot. Q. Trying to get this mass down, and did not succeed? A. Yes; and Mr. Talbert. Q. How long did Mr. Talbert work at it trying to get it down? A. A minuto or so. Q. And could he get it down? A. No, sir. Q. What did Mr. Talbert say about it, now? A. He says, 'There is lots of time; if we shoot that we lose this smelting ore that is alongside of it.' Q. What else? A. Then we started. Q. I mean is that all he said then? A. That is all he said then. Q. Didn't you and he discuss the question whether it was likely to fall or not? A. No, sir.- Q. Nothing said about it? A. No, sir; not to my knowledge. Q. After you had tried it that way, you were both satisfied it was not likely to fall, was not you? A. No, sir; I was not satisfied, because I thought it might fall any time. Q. Did you think it was dangerous, and likely to fall then? A. Yes, sir; if I did not I would not want to put this hole in. Q. You went and sat right down where it could fall on your body? A. Yes, sir; afterwards. Q. Although you thought at that time, it was liable to fall any time? A. I was not sitting. Q. You say there was not anything said between you it was no!; likely to fall after you tried it? A. No, sir; not to my knowledge. Q. You wont and stood where it could fall on your body, and Talbert went and stood where it could fall on him, didn't he? A. Yes, sir."
Actions speak louder and more truthfully than words, and the acts of Austin and the foreman conclusively prove to our minds that they did not anticipate any such result as ihe fall of this mass of earth. They stationed themselves at work opposite and beneath it, so that if it fell it must strike their bodies, unless they could fortunately jump from under it. Finalyson evidently did not anticipate its fall, if he had, he would not have seated himself beneath it to drill a hole that was aside from it, and that he might have drilled as well from its opposite side, where the falling mass could not have struck Mm. After a careful perusal of all the evidence in this case, we are of the opinion that there is none here that would sustain a verdict that this company or the foreman was guilty of any negligence that a man of ordinary prudence could have reasonably anticipated would result in this injury. The judgment below is affirmed, with costs.