Hart v. Mason City Brick & Tile Co.

135 N.W. 423, 154 Iowa 741
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedApril 5, 1912
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 135 N.W. 423 (Hart v. Mason City Brick & Tile Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hart v. Mason City Brick & Tile Co., 135 N.W. 423, 154 Iowa 741 (iowa 1912).

Opinion

Weaver, J.

The defendant corporation is a manufacturer of brick and tile at Mason City, Iowa. The grounds occupied by the plant have an area of nearly twenty acres, extending about eighty rods east and west and thirty-five rods north and south. Near the center of this tract are situated the buildings made use of in carrying on the business; among these structures, a detailed description of which is unnecessary for the purposes of the appeal are a large dryer, a machinery room, a boiler room, an engine room and coal room, standing upon the west side of a railway track which has been laid for the accommodation of the factory. On the east side of the track is a building known as “the old blacksmith shop,” and ten feet south thereof is the “new shop.” A door in the south end of the old shop opens upon the alley between these buildings. In the old shop, and about twenty-eight feet from the south end thereof, is a horizontal shaft of iron or steel, by the aid of which power was applied to the operation of certain fans. This shaft rests on bearings about five feet above the floor. This room is also connected with an oil room to which employees have frequent occasion to go in the course of their employment. No particular work was then being carried on in the room containing the shaft, but workmen frequently entered it to reach the oil room, and for other temporary purposes, and, when work was in progress in that vicinity, the door opening upon the alley was frequently, if not usually, left open. This alley was much frequented by the workmen, and at times at least persons not connected with the business made use of the passage in crossing the premises of the defendant. Among the persons so passing with more or less frequency were boys who sometimes loitered and played in that vicinity, but the extent of this practice [743]*743is a matter of dispute in testimony. Sometimes the hoys passed through the open door of the old blacksmith shop, and amused themselves by hanging upon and sliding along the smooth revolving shaft. There is no direct or positive testimony, however, that this practice was known to or permitted by the defendant or its agents in charge of the premises.

On the day of the accident in question the plaintiff, a boy then in his eleventh year, with others, went into the old shop through the open door and played upon the shaft. In so doing the clothing of the plaintiff was in some manner wound upon the shaft, and, before help could be obtained for his release, he sustained very serious injury. To recover compensation for the damages so occasioned this action has been brought. The defendant is charged with negligence in leaving an open and unobstructed entrance to the shop, containing dangerous machinery of a character likely to attract children, and in permitting children to there resort as a place to play, and in the further fact that upon the revolving shaft above mentioned there was an unguarded set screw upon which plaintiff's clothing was caught binding him to the shaft, and preventing his escape from injury. The allegations of the petition charging negligence are denied by the defendant. The issues were tried to a jury. At the close of the testimony, defendant moved for a directed verdict in its favor on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to support a recovery of damages. This motion was overruled, and, the cause having been submitted to the jury, a verdict was returned for plaintiff in the sum of $1,000. . From the denial of its motion for a new trial and from the judgment on the verdict, the defendant has appealed.

Very numerous errors are assigned and argued as grounds upon which a new trial should be ordered. Most of these we think it unnecessary to discuss except as they are involved in the general question concerning the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict.

[744]*7441. Negligence:proximate ' cause. That plaintiff was injured upon the defendant’s premises is not denied, but this alone has no tendency to charge the defendant with legal liability for the damages so suffered. To impose such liability, it must be shown that defendant was negligent, and that such negligence was the proximate cause of the injury.

2. Same: dangerous machinery: injury to stranger: liability. The appellee plants his case upon the doctrine affirmed by us in Edington v. Railroad Co., 116 Iowa, 410, and in other cases of that type which are usually spoken of as the “turntable cases.” This court has no disposition whatever to overrule that precedent . •. . or to deny its application to any case coming fairly within its reason and principle, but the principle can not be so extended as to deny to owners and proprietors of factories, shops, and places devoted to the varied forms of industry their natural and legal right to make use of the same to the best advantage, subject of course, to the fundamental rule that each person must use and enjoy that which is his own in a manner to avoid injury to others. The cases to which counsel refer involve for the most part an act of negligence in exposing and leaving in an unguarded condition dangerous machinery of a character likely to attract children in an open or public place where the presence of children is known or may reasonably be apprehended. The recklessness, if not wantonness of such conduct, is too apparent for argument, and liability imposed for injuries so resulting is manifestly just. But a manufacturer who places machinery in his own building upon his own premises, and neither expressly nor impliedly invites children to enter there, or to put themselves in a place of danger, is not open to any such imputation of blame. This distinction -was recognized by us in Brown v. Canning Company, 132 Iowa, 631. There a boy of seven was injured by machinery in a canning factory. He entered the room where the machine was installed, not upon any [745]*745business errand, but in pursuit of play, or as a matter of idle curiosity, and, coming in contract with some of the machinery which was there in operation, he was injured. There, as here, plaintiff relied upon the turntable cases; but we said: “The facts of this ease do not bring it within any such rule, nor are they so far analogous that in reason the same principle should he applied to them. The machinery was not in an open lot unattended, but was in an inclosed building into which it could be reasonably supposed no one would come without proper occasion. It was not negligently left unguarded, for the superintendent of the defendant and other employees were about the building, and some of them had warned boys away from the machinery. It was not negligently left unlocked or unfastened, for it could not have been locked or fastened without interfering with its legitimate and proper use. It was not operated by the children as a plaything, but was set in motion for a legitimate purpose by means of power furnished from the main building.” We think the rule of the turntable cases is therefore not applicable.

3. Same: duty to guard machinery: wanton carelessness: evidence. For the reasons stated, the plaintiff was not permitted to recover. The record before us presents an issue which comes well within the rule of the Brown case, and we think it must govern our disposition of the appeal. Of course, if there was any showing that _ . . the defendant or its employees or agents m . .

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Bluebook (online)
135 N.W. 423, 154 Iowa 741, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hart-v-mason-city-brick-tile-co-iowa-1912.