Kolasen v. Great Northern Paper Co.
Kolasen v. Great Northern Paper Co.
Opinion of the Court
This is an action on the case to recover damages for personal injuries received by the plaintiff while employed as a painter by the defendant corporation in its mill, and comes before this court on the plaintiff’s exceptions to a non suit ordered pro forma at the close of the plaintiff’s evidence.
It is a well established rule in this State that a motion for a non-suit will not be granted when there is any evidence in the case, competent to be submitted to the jury, tending to show the liability of the defendant. Union Slate Company v. Tilton, 69 Maine, 244.
Briefly stated, the plaintiff’s contentions are these. At the time of the accident he was only a little more than twenty years of age, a native of Austria Hungary, had been in this country about four years and during those years had worked as a common laborer. On the day of the accident he was engaged with three other men in painting the ceiling of the mill. The crew arranged their own staging which was suspended by ropes attached to iron girders near the ceiling. The room in which the work was being done was slightly more than one hundred eighty feet long and seventy-three feet wide. The southerly end of the room contained partitions making what was called an alcove at the trial. Along the westerly side of the alcove was a shaft located two feet from the ceiling and a foot and eleven inches from the westerly partition of the alcove. On this shaft, which revolved with great rapidity when the machinery of the mill was in operation, was a collar held in place by a set screw projecting three-fourths of an inch from the collar. It was
Under all the evidence, which we have carefully examined, and under rules- of law too familiar to need citation of authorities, we are of opinion that the facts relating to the question of liability of the defendant should have been submitted to the jury.
Exceptions sustained.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- John Kolasen v. The Great Northern Paper Company
- Status
- Published