52 S.E.2d 248 | W. Va. | 1949
This action in trespass on the case was brought in the Circuit Court of Putnam County by Brooks Raynes, an infant under the age of twenty-one years who sued by Frances V. Raynes, his legal guardian, against Nitro Pencil Company, a corporation, seeking the recovery of $25,000.00 damages for the loss of three of the plaintiff's fingers in the course of his employment by the defendant at its Nitro factory while operating a defective rotating roller. Demurrers were sustained to both an original and an amended declaration, the latter being spoken of hereafter as the declaration, and the action dismissed. This writ of error was granted upon the petition of the plaintiff below.
The declaration alleges that the plaintiff, at the time of his injury, was seventeen years of age and therefore that his employment by the defendant was in violation of Code,
The contention of the plaintiff in error, plaintiff below, was and is that his employment by the defendant was in violation of Code,
The plaintiff in error, plaintiff below, answers the contention of defendant by arguing that the section in question is a remedial statute that should be liberally construed and that consequently the word "furnaces" as used therein should not be restricted to furnaces used in the heat treatment of metals.
As we understand the rule permitting the liberal construction of remedial statutes, it is, like other rules of construction, not applied where the language under consideration carries a plain meaning. Kelley Moyers v. Bowman,
In our opinion the plant of the defendant is plainly not a "place in which the heating, melting or heat treatment of metals is carried on" and therefore that it is not included within the terms of Code,
Affirmed. *421