Court Opinion

ID: 9831930
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:29:03.525698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:39.498363
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Because of the claim, made in the motion for rehearing, that' this case is in conflict with the opinion of this court in Kriseh v. Richter, 130 S. W. 186, we have thought it well enough to write an opinion on refusing this motion. The Kriseh Case is urged, with much force and commendation, as the lav) on the subject controlling the disposition of this appeal in favor of appellant’s contention. The writer, not having been a member of the court at that time, can, with propriety, likewise commend it for its clear statement of the principles of law governing such cases, which makes it take high rank in our jurisprudence as one of the very best considered and leading cases on the subject. It has had the approval of our Supreme Court, and is urged by counsel for appellant to secure a reversal of this case, contending, as stated, the opinion in this case is in conflict with it.
There is, to our mind, a wide difference in the facts surrounding the two cases.
Fritz Geisler, when he was injured, was 15 years of age, shown to be a boy of unusual intelligence and very bright and apt. He stated he had worked on ice boxes before the time he was hurt, and fixed up new ice boxes. His general duties, for three months prior to the time he was hurt, were, as stated by him: “I worked on all ice boxes, when Mr. Friedrich told me to do it, and, whenever there wasn’t any work for me to do, Mr. Friedrich told me to go and get some work from some of the workmen and do what they told me to do. * * * Just before I went to the machine where I was hurt, I was working on an old ice box that Mr. Fried-rich told me to repair. At the time I began work on that ice box, Mr. Friedrich was about four feet away from me. He told me to repair everything that should be repaired on the ice box. I made an examination of the ice box to see what should be repaired. I just looked it over, and then I did whatever was necessary. When I went to work, on the afternoon I was hurt, the first work I did, I started on the ice box right after 1 o’clock. The first thing we had to do was to clean it out. * * * And after we cleaned it out I started to repair on it. There were some old boards in it that were broke, and we had to take those out and put in new ones. 'I took these boards from the ice box from the right-hand side. There was a double partition, one side was to keep moat racks on, side holes, inside, and that was the one that was broke — the inside board. I went to the machine and was fixing something there to hang one of the meat racks on, and so I got hurt. The board I was fixing was about six inches long, about three inches wide, about three-quarters of an inch thick, and it was oak wood. I had to plane that board off, to fix it, cut it, to have it go on the wall, and then saw it — I was supposed to saw it. And then where the rack hangs on, had a rack to hang it on. I hewed a piece of oak wood and sawed it until it was about six inches long and three inches wide, and then I taken it and planed it, and just as I was planing it, why, the machine *1083dragged it over along my hand, and I got hurt. The planing machine is fixed about in the shape of this (illustrating by railing of witness stand), broader and longer than this, and had iron on one side of it, and you would have to put your hand on top of the board and shove it over the knife in order to plane it. When I got my hand hurt, the plane planed about half an inch on the board, and then the machine stopped, and I taken off some of my weight, and the machine started again and pulled the board from under my hand, and my hand went on the' machine. They had four knives on the machine, and Mr. Friedrich told me, after I got hurt, that they revolved about 2,000 revolutions a minute. * * * These knives were fixed upon a square piece of iron, and the knives were something like the edge of that pencil (referring to pencil in Mr. Davis’ hand). There were four knives around the cylinder. We had a belt that ran back of the machine, back here (indicating), which revolved these wheels for these knives here, and, in order to have this here, they had a brake further down here to throw the belt on here, and, if you threw the belt on here, these knives would revolve, and you would have to shove the board over it in order to have it planed. These knives extended very little above the surface or the top of the machine — about one-sixteenth of an inch. In planing a piece of material you would have to hold your hand on it and start shoving over against here and hold it down on the surface of the table and shove it across. When I planed this piece of timber, I had my hand on the middle of it; I had my hand on it like this. As the machine moved, it did nqjt move the timber, and the knives would not pull it across; you would have to shove it across. If you didn’t shove it across, the knives would revolve it the other way. I shoved it across. When I got hurt, the machine had planed about half an inch, and the machine started to stop, and I taken off some of my weight. The machine started again, and as I put the timber on it, why, it threw the board back, and my hand fell on it. As the board fell from under my hand, it fell backwards, came back, my hand fell on it, and I got cut. * * * My fingers were cut off entirely at the time of the accident. The flesh was cut off entirely and the bone was cut deep. * * * Mr. Friedrich knew my age. * * * Mr. Friedrich, nor any of his foreman there, ever warned me of any danger in the use of this machine. I never had any warning or instructions with reference to the use of that machine. They never did warn me. Mr. Friedrich told me to repair everything that was to be repaired on that ice box; he wanted to send it out the next day. It was necessary for me to plane this piece of board in order for me to repair that ice box. * * * I never did have any experience in planing a short board, of this length, size, and weight, that I have described, that I was using at the time I was hurt. * * * I didn’t know then the particular effect or the tendency of using the short board that you used upon a machine like that. * * » I had used that planing machine in the presence of Mr. Friedrich before that. Mr. Friedrich was standing there watching me while I was working on it. * * * Mr. Friedrich told me, after I got hurt, that a short board ought not to be used on the machine. * * * He never told me that before I got hurt. If he had told me that it was dangerous, I would not have used that board.”
On cross-examination he stated: “I had to do work, whatever I was told to do. Sometimes I worked by myself, and sometimes I worked with somebody else. I did planing. I went there as an apprentice. As to whether I went there to do that work and run planers, I worked with everything that ever had to be done, like Mr. Friedrich told me on the box; said to do everything that has to be done on it, and I went to do everything that was to be done on it. He told me to do everything that was to be done on it.” He further stated: “He (meaning Mr. Frie-drich) never did tell me anything about the machine. He never gave me a word of warning. I never knew that I had to work on the machine. * * * These push blocks were not on the machine where I was hurt, at any time prior to the time I was hurt. I didn’t see it until a week after I was hurt. That was the first time I seen that. I had never seen one like that before. A push block had never been used in my presence on that machine. I had never used it and had never seen any one else use it.” He further stated: “Mr. Groos did not call me to let it alone; I didn’t hear him. The machine I was working on makes a very buzzing sound, and standing next to the machine, if somebody hollered at you, you couldn’t hear them. I did not hear that. I did not turn around and look at him. I did not take the block out and turn it around and put it in the other way. That is not the block.”
The evidence also clearly shows that the boy, at that time, did not know of the danger of the machine. He had been there but a short time, and was inexperienced, and had not been warned, as shown by the facts, and as stated in our opinion.
In the Krisch Case the boy was between 17 and 18 years of .age, had been at work in the bakery for nearly a year, had seen the. machine in operation, and knew that the cogs in the wheels were dangerous when the machine was in motion; and there was nothing to prevent him from seeing the two cogwheels, which he cleaned for about a year.
Judge Fly, in his opinion in the .Krisch Case, among other things, said: “The un-*1084controverted testimony of the defendant was to the effect that he always told his employés not to put their -fingers in the cogs or any part of the machine. The whole of the evidence indicated that plaintiff must have known, and did know, that it was dangerous for him to work with a rag about his fingers in close proximity to the cogs of a moving machine. The danger was open and and just as apparent to him as to the foreman. It did not take any skill or extra knowledge for any human being, even of very limited mental capacity, to know that if the fingers are placed between interlocking cogs of a moving machine that they will be injured.”
We have quoted so much from the testimony in order that the facts, in the ICrisch Case, may he readily distinguished from the facts in this case.
In the ICrisch Case the hoy had been working with the machine, and cleaning the cogs daily, for a year, and was 17 or 18 years old.
In this case the boy was 15 years of age, had been working only about three months, had not been warned, and could not see the danger that might come to him in shoving a short piece of wood across the knives any more than a longer piece; nor did he have any instructions that in planing short pieces of wood they had to be manipulated in another way.
We can see no conflict in the two cases, but believe that the ICrisch Case is authority for the disposition of this case, and the motion for rehearing is refused.