Izydorczyk v. Reading Car Wheel Co.
Izydorczyk v. Reading Car Wheel Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The plaintiff in this case sought to recover damages for personal injuries, resulting from the alleged negligence of his employer. The trial in the court below resulted in a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, and the defendant has appealed. It appears from the evidence, that at the time of the accident, plaintiff had been working for seven months, as a laborer, for the defendant. Upon the day in question, the superintendent came to plaintiff and ordered him to go to work upon the “drop.” Another laborer, Nowartarski, who had been employed by defendant about five months, was also sent to work at the “drop.” This was an apparatus used to break car wheels. It was located in a shed, over forty feet high, and consisted of a lump or ball of iron, weighing about 1,800 pounds, called the hammer. There was a ring or eye on the upper side of the hammer, into which fitted an iron hook suspended from the roof of the shed by a wire rope. There was a rope that startled an electric motor by which the hammer could be raised to the roof, and another, attached to the hook, by which the latter might be released from the eye upon the hammer. It was the duty of the workmen to
Both plaintiff and Nowartarski testified that no instructions were given them by the superintendent, or by anyone else, as to how the work should be done, and they were not warned of any danger connected with it. They had seen the device being operated by others. The evidence further shows that after plaintiff and Nowartarski went to work on the drop, they operated it five or six times, breaking up ten or twelve wheels. Sometimes they had difficulty in hooking the ball properly, and had to make several attempts to hook it. About an hour after they began work, it seems that Nowartarski hooked the hammer, and plaintiff started the motor and lifted the hammer six feet. Nowartarski put a wheel under it, and then took the elevator cord and began to lift the hammer towards the roof, while plaintiff was putting the second wheel in position. Nowartarski was holding one of the cords, and pulling the other up, when the hammer fell prematurely, rolled upon plaintiff and injured him. Nowartarski, who was called as plaintiff’s witness, denied positively that he had made any mistake or pulled the wrong cord, and claimed that he could not have released the hammer by pulling the release cord at the height at which it was when it fell. Plaintiff said that he noticed that the hook was old, because it was shiny.
The first assignment of error is based on an exception to the admission of testimony of plaintiff’s witness, John Schultz, who had worked upon the drop for a period of six years, ending some ten or eleven months before the accident. The offer was to show that the hook, when worn, was easily de
Both of the men were inexperienced, and were taken from ordinary day labor, and set to work with a device, which according to the testimony of the superintendent, was dangerous in operation, if not handled correctly. The evidence upon the part of the plaintiff is, that no instructions were given, and that nothing was said to the two green men, about the danger of touching the pulling ropes while the hammer was suspended, or in using a hook worn smooth or shiny. They were contradicted as to this by the foreman, who said he showed them how to work the apparatus; so that it became a disputed question of fact, as to whether instructions were given.
We agree with the court below that under the charge, and
It was for the jury to determine the disputed questions of fact, and to draw therefrom the necessary and reasonable inferences. The assignments of error are overruled, and the judgment is affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Izydorczyk v. Reading Car Wheel Company
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Negligence — Master and servant — Dangerous machine — Failure to instruct. 1. Where two inexperienced workmen in a manufacturing establishment are directed to work at a dangerous machine without any instruction as- to how to operate the apparatus, or as to how to use without danger a portion of the machine which had worn smooth or shiny, and one of the men is injured while the two are jointly operating the machine, the question of the employer’s liability for the injuries sustained is for the jury. 2. In such a case a workman who had left the establishment ten or eleven months before the accident may testify, not as to the smooth and shiny condition of the particular device at the time of the accident, but that such part grew smooth and shiny through use, and that in that condition it became dangerous, and that he had frequently reported this to the superintendent.