45 A.2d 207 | Vt. | 1946
This is an action based on the claimed illegal employment of the plaintiff by the defendants in their laundry business. The defendants demurred to the plaintiff's declaration. The demurrer was overruled and the case passed to this Court before final judgment under the provisions of P.L. 2072.
P.L. 6584 sub. sec. III, as amended by No. 176, § 6 of the Acts of 1937, prohibits the employment or allowance of a child under the age of 16 years to operate laundering and other specified machinery. Exceptions to this restriction, not here material, are set forth in P.L. 6585.
It is alleged that the defendants employed the plaintiff, a minor of the age of 14, to work in their laundry. There were several grounds set forth in the demurrer but the only one here argued raises the question, as stated in the defendant's brief, of whether the allegations in the declaration show an employment of the plaintiff in violation of the statute "so that he may proceed in this form of action rather than under the Workmen's Compensation Act."
The defendants contend that the only allegation in the *367 declaration setting forth any act having to do with the operation of laundry machinery is the one which reads as follows: "And said defendant, John Rashaw, did then and there instruct the plaintiff's said ward to operate and work in, on and about said laundry machinery, namely a dryer and/or extractor, and did then and there instruct him to remove from said dryer and/or extractor certain clothes which had been placed therein for the purpose of drying." The defendants say that the only reasonable construction to be given the above allegation is that the plaintiff relies only upon the removal of the clothes from the dryer as constituting an act of operation of the machine. Thus they say that the question finally resolves itself "into whether or not the removing of clothing from the dryer is `operating' laundry machinery."
In State v. Tacey,
The defendants contend that the mere removal of an article from a machine is not an operation thereof within the meaning of the accepted definitions of "operate" as applied to machinery.
Pleadings are to be given a reasonable construction. Trask v.Karrick,
It should be noted, as bearing on our construction of the allegation, that in other places in the declaration the word "operate" is used in connection with the alleged employment of the plaintiff. It should also be so noted that although there is no allegation as to whether or not the movable parts of the dryer were in motion at the time the injuries complained of were received, these injuries, as alleged, were very extensive and severe.
The judgment overruling the demurrer is affirmed and causeremanded.