Case Name: SNOWDEN v. DETROIT & MACKINAC RAILWAY CO.
Court: Michigan Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1915-07-23
Citations: 187 Mich. 140
Docket Number: Docket No. 71
Parties: SNOWDEN v. DETROIT & MACKINAC RAILWAY CO.
Judges: Stone, Moore, and Steere, JJ., concurred with Ostrander, J. Brooke, C. J., concurred in the result.
Reporter: Michigan Reports
Volume: 187
Pages: 140–145

Head Matter:
SNOWDEN v. DETROIT & MACKINAC RAILWAY CO.
Master and Servant — Dangerous Machinery — Personal Injuries — Statutes.
Ad action for' the death of plaintiff’s decedent, alleged to have been caused by uncovered gearing in defendant’s pumping station plant, in charge of deceased, cannot be based upon the violation of Act No. 285, Pub. Acts 1909, the pumping station and machinery in question not being within the provisions of the act. Kuhn and Bird, JJ., dissenting.
Error to Cheboygan; Sharpe, J., presiding.
Submitted June 22, 1914.
(Docket No. 71.)
Decided July 23, 1915.
Case by Ellen Snowden, administratrix of the estate of John Snowden, deceased, against the Detroit & Mackinac Railway Company for the unlawful killing of plaintiffs intestate. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant brings error.
Reversed.
Henry, Henry & Henry (James McNamara, of counsel), for appellant.
Homer H. Quay and Victor D. Sprague, for appellee.

Opinion:
Ostrander, J.
I am impressed, that the act, the violation of which is relied upon to establish the negligence of defendant, cannot be held to apply to the machinery in charge of plaintiffs decedent. Plainly, the water tank and its machinery was not a factory, storehouse, or warehouse. The act should be made effective, as a police regulation, having reference to its scope and purposes as evidenced by the language employed. To make it apply to windmills, or to pumps operated by gasoline engines, upon farms, would be, I think, a plain extension of the scope and purpose of the act. And yet, if held to apply in the case at bar, no sound reasoning can except from its operation such, farm machinery. I disagree, therefore, with Mr. Justice Bird upon the third point stated in his opinion, and hold that the judgment should be reversed and a new trial granted.
Stone, Moore, and Steere, JJ., concurred with Ostrander, J. Brooke, C. J., concurred in the result.
The late Justice McAlvay took no part in this decision.