66 P. 713 | Or. | 1901
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an action brought by the administratrix of Frederick J. Miller’s estate to recover damages for his death. For some two or three months prior to his death Miller was employed by the defendant as a common laborer in its mill. It was his duty, among other things, to clear away the trimmings and sawdust from a space between one of the saws and the wall, four or five feet distant. Over this space, three feet from the floor, a line shaft two and one half inches in diameter revolved, when the mill was in operation, at the rate of five hundred revolutions a minute. On the end of the shaft, near the wall, and about four feet from the saw, was a large pulley, twenty inches in diameter, over which ran a ten-inch belt. The shaft was in two pieces, joined about six inches from the pulley and three and one half feet from the saw by flange couplings nine inches in diameter, held together by bolts and nuts. These bolts ran parallel to the shaft, and one of them, as the evidence tended to show, extended out on the opposite side from the pulley, about one and one half to one and three quarter inches beyond the nut. Miller’s work was in the space between the pulley and the saw, and it was often necessary, in removing the sawdust and trimmings, for him to stoop or reach under the revolving shaft and couplings. On the night of November 21, 1899, while he was thus engaged at work, he was caught, whirled around the shaft, and so injured that he died in a few minutes. No one saw him caught, but two of his fellow workmen, who were some distance away, saw him immediately after, and both testify that he was being whirled around the shaft near the coupling, and a part of the clothing torn from his body was wrapped around the coupling. The mill was usually stopped a few moments while changing crews in the morning and evening, and again at midnight for lunch, but there is no evidence that Miller’s attention had been called to the projecting bolt, which was not visible when the shaft was in motion, or that he had any knowledge of it. The plaintiff had a verdict, and the question before us is whether there was any evidence to warrant it.