172 Ind. 599 | Ind. | 1909
The United States Cement Company, defendant below, appealed from a judgment against it to the Appellate Court, where the judgment was reversed, and the cause remanded to the circuit court for a new trial. There was no petition for a rehearing filed in the Appellate Court by the appellee, but the cement company, being dissatisfied with the declarations of law contained in the opinion of the Appellate Court, filed its petition for a rehearing and for a modification of the opinion and mandate. Appellant’s petition was overruled, and thereupon, in due season, it filed its application, under clause two of §1394 Burns 1908, Acts 1901, p. 565, §10, for a transfer of the case to the Supreme Court, alleging therein that the decision of the Appellate Court is in conflict with certain specified ruling precedents of this court.
This is an action by appellee to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of appellant. It is shown by answers to interrogatories that the United States Cement Company maintains a plant for the manufacture of cement, and employs, among other devices, what is called a “screw conveyor.” The conveyor, which is propelled by steam-power, is about eighty feet long, composed of a cylindrical iron rod, three inches in diameter, resting at each end in a bearing and encircled by steel flanges, four or five inches wide, in spiral form, and, when being operated, is revolved in an iron-lined box, for most part uncovered at the top. The box is about eighteen inches wide, is horizontal in position, rests on the floor level, and is about eighteen inches high. The sides of the box are about four inches above the top of the revolving screw. The box traverses and rests on ten hopper-shaped bins, and the office of the screw is to convey to, and distribute in, the bins crushed stone. Immediately on the west side of the box is a board walk, three or four feet wide, for the use of employes. The plaintiff, a young man of eighteen, was employed to attend to the conveyor, and superintend the proper distribution of the crushed stone delivered in the bins, and his duties required him occasionally to step across the conveyor box. He had been engaged at the place two days, and, while in the act of crossing the conveyor box at a place where it was not covered, stumbled and threw his foot into the box, and was injured by the revolving screw. The box could have been covered without impairing its usefulness, and, for the use of employes in crossing, in fact, was covered, with the exception of a few feet at the point where the plaintiff attempted to cross at the time of his injury.
A separate demurrer to each paragraph, for insufficiency of facts, was overruled. Trial by jury, and verdict and judgment for appellee for $500, with answers to interrogatories. Appellant’s motions for judgment on such answers, and for a new trial, were overruled.
It clearly appears from the answers to interrogatories that the verdict rests upon the second and third paragraphs of the complaint, which fact relieves us from a consideration of the first paragraph, since, if it were bad, the overruling of the demurrer to it did not injure the defendant.
A description of the screw conveyor is set forth in the second paragraph, and it is averred that this conveyor revolved rapidly, by means of machinery, in an iron-lined box (which is described), and thus forced forward crushed stone which was delivered in the box by other machinery; that on July 7, 1905, the work of appellee compelled him to pass about and over said screw conveyor, which was uncovered, open and exposed, and without guard or protection, contrary to the laws of Indiana relating to the use of machinery in mills; that said unguarded and unprotected screw conveyor was dangerous to employes of the mill, who were required to work with and about it; that it could have been guarded at small cost, without interference with the proper use thereof; that the plaintiff, while in the line of duty, and doing the work the defendant directed him to do, and while stepping
The third paragraph is like the second, except that it alleges that while plaintiff was stooping to avoid some electric wires, which were a short distance above the conveyor box, his foot became entangled, and he fell, throwing his foot into the conveyor box, where it was caught by the flanges of the screw and injured.
The principal question is, Does the complaint show that the offending screw conveyor is such a manufacturing device or machine as the master must guard or fence within the purview of the statute relied upon by appellee ?
The provisions of said act of 1899 show that the general purpose was to provide a system of inspection, and to provide for the guarding and fencing of every kind of dangerous manufacturing or mining instrumentality, in such a way as to reduce the danger to those required to work with or about them, as far as may reasonably be accomplished without impairing or affecting the designed use. Section five (§8025 Burns 1908) provides that the inspector shall examine all elevators and require the same to be made, and kept safe. By sections six and thirteen (§§8026, 8033 Burns 1908) he must inspect all buildings used for manufacturing purposes, and, if found unsafe to life or limb, must require them to be made safe. He shall also require handrails to be put on all stairways and the steps and risers thereof made easy and safe. By section seven (§8027 Bums 1908) he is required to see that each room of the establishment is connected with the engine room, by speaking tubes, electric
. Section nine (§8029 Burns 1908) enacts that in all establishments where machinery is used the master shall furnish belt-shifters, or other safe mechanical contrivances for the purpose of throwing off belts and pulleys, and, when possible, loose pulleys shall be used. All persons under sixteen and all females under the age of eighteen years shall be prohibited from cleaning machinery while the same is in motion. It is further provided in this section that the inspector may attach a notice, over his signature, to any machine that he deems dangerous, and the removal of such notice and the further use of the machine is prohibited until after the required safeguards are put on. It is well to note here that by this provision every sort of dangerous machinery is brought under the dominion of the inspeetox*.
Thus it seems that the dangers arising from unsuitable buildings, from doors of egress, from elevators, stairways, youth and inexperience, from machines condemned by the inspectors, were all within the consideration of the lawmaker’s, as was also the possible safety to be derived from immediately available belt-shifters, loose pulleys, direct and speedy communication with the engine-room, embracing as the act does, in a general way, the entire field of danger surroundixxg such industrial establishments, and all of which tend to confirm the xxnmistakable legislative intention to mixximize the perils of every character to which laborers are naturally exposed while pursuing their assigned duties in such places.
The discussion, however, centers upon the following clause of §8029, supra: “All vats, pans, saws, planers, cogs, geax’ing, belting, shafting, set-screws and machinery of every description thex’ein shall be properly guarded.”
The office of the rule, however, like that of all other canons of construction, is to afford aid to the court in developing the true meaning of the statute, and cannot be employed to restrict the operation of an act within narrower limits than was intended by the lawmakers. Woodworth v. State (1875), 26 Ohio St. 196; Willis v. Mahon (1892), 48 Minn. 140, 156, 50 N. W. 1110, 16 L. R. A. 281, 31 Am. St. 626; 2 Lewis’s Sutherland, Stat. Constr. (2d ed.), §437.
But the guarding of all these things falls far short of carrying out the design of the law. To hold that the General Assembly, in devising a general plan for protecting the safety and health of factory laborers, as indicated by the title, has gone to the pains of ordaining an inspection of buildings, of providing safety devices for the use of elevators and of stairways, the manner of swinging doors of egress, for the control of belts and pulleys, for maintaining communication with engine-rooms, and for the guarding of a few minor appliances, and has left the peril arising from the great body of dangerous machinery used in such places wholly unrestricted, is absurd, and it is discourteous to the legislature to impute to it such lawmaking imperfection.
Considering the general purpose of the legislation, as distinctly shown by the various provisions of the act, it becomes plain that the design of the lawmakers was the selection of certain manufacturing instrumentalities, generally known to be dangerous, and susceptible of being guarded without impairing their usefulness, and the imposition upon masters of the general duty of properly guarding all such instrumentalities, on the penalty that failure to do so should be accounted negligence per se.
What the law seeks is to lessen the danger to laborers in such establishments. It would not interfere with any safe machine. It would interfere with any machine and any part of a machine that is dangerous, and which may be made safe, or more safe, by fencing. Green v. American Car, etc., Co.
We said in the case last cited: “What evidently was intended or contemplated by the legislature was that those parts of the machinery which were dangerous to employes whose duties required them to work in the immediate vicinity of such dangerous machinery should be properly guarded, in order to minimize as far as practicable the perils or dangers attending their labor.”
The view we have expressed seems to be in accord with the manifest design of the enactment as a whole. It gives laborers, when assembled in manufacturing and other like establishments, protection from all sources of danger, and enables us to give effect to all the words of the statute in accordance with their usual signification.
Appellee’s counsel, in his closing argument to the jury, used the following language: “The plaintiff is not rich.
Judgment reversed and cause remanded, with instructions to sustain appellant’s motion for a new trial, and for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith.