Love v. Chambers Lumber Co.

129 P. 492, 64 Or. 129, 1913 Ore. LEXIS 19
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 28, 1913
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 129 P. 492 (Love v. Chambers Lumber Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Love v. Chambers Lumber Co., 129 P. 492, 64 Or. 129, 1913 Ore. LEXIS 19 (Or. 1913).

Opinion

Opinion by

Mr. Chief Justice McBride.

Many of the facts above stated are strongly contradicted by testimony introduced by defendant, but we are not the judges of the weight of testimony.

1. Where there is evidence to support a verdict, and the facts have been submitted to a jury under proper instructions, we are precluded from disturbing such verdict. Article VII, Section 3, of the constitution as amended November 8, 1910 (Laws 1911, p. 7) ; Wills v. Palmer Lumber Co., 58 Or. 536 (115 Pac. 417); Purdy v. Van Keuren, 60 Or. 263 (119 Pac. 149).

[134]*1342. The testimony of plaintiff’s witnesses indicates that the plaintiff’s duties in the course of his employment required him to cross the shaft, and that this was his usual and the most practical route to the place where he was compelled to go to throw off the belt. Crossing the shaft was, therefore, an act incidental to the work in which he was engaged, and it was the duty of defendant to have so guarded it as to have so far as practicable protected him from danger.

3. The contention that plaintiff assumed the risk incident to the unguarded condition of the machinery cannot be sustained. This court has already held that in actions under the factory act assumption of risk is not a defense. Hill v. Saugested, 53 Or. 178 (98 Pac. 524: 22 L. R. A. [N. S.] 634); Erickson v. McNeeley & Co., 41 Wash. 509 (84 Pac. 4). It was therefore not error for the court to refuse to instruct the jury that the employe assumes the open and visible risks of his employment. While it may be true, as stated in Byrne v. Nye & Wait Carpet Company, 46 App. Div. 479 (61 N. Y. Supp. 741), that the employer is not required to guard machinery situated remotely from the place where the employe is at work,'and where the employer would not reasonably anticipate that he would go, no such conditions appear in this case. The evidence rather tends to indicate that defendant’s manager ought reasonably to have anticipated that plaintiff would go where he actually went; and would probably take the route that he did take.

4. An exception was taken to the admission of evidence showing that a guard or boxing had been placed over the machinery subsequent to the injury to plaintiff. Where such testimony is offered for the purpose of showing negligence at the time of the accident, it is clearly inadmissible. Columbia & Puget Sound R. Co. v. Hawthorne, 144 U. S. 202 (12 Sup. Ct. 591: 36 L. Ed. 405).

[135]*1355. However, the testimony was not offered nor admitted for such purpose, but for the purpose of showing the practicability of operating the machinery when so guarded. The complaint alleged that it was practicable for defendant to have so guarded the machinery as to have prevented the accident without interfering with its ordinary, use. This was denied in the answer, so it became necessary for plaintiff to establish the proposition that it could be so guarded. No better evidence could have been introduced for this purpose than to show that after the accident the machinery had been so guarded, and that such safeguards had not in any way impeded or interfered with its operation. Erickson v. McNeeley Co., 41 Wash. 509 (84 Pac. 4).

6. Defendant requested the following instruction, which was refused:

“If you find from the evidence in this case that the plaintiff was injured by performing his duties in a dangerous manner, and that he might have performed them safely in a manner provided by the defendant, the plaintiff would be guilty of contributory negligence and could not recover, notwithstanding the defendant has been remiss in its duty of safeguarding the machinery that caused the injury.”

We think this instruction is sufficiently covered by the general instruction on this point, which was as follows:

“Should you find from the evidence that the way taken by the plaintiff in going to the point in the basement, where the belt was to be adjusted, was the usual ordinary way pursued by plaintiff and other employes, whose duties called upon them to go into the basement and to the place where plaintiff was going, and that said way was not in itself so dangerous that an ordinarily prudent man under the same circumstances and conditions would not have gone the same way, then you are instructed that the plaintiff in adopting such course in going to and from said basement at the time he was injured was not guilty of contributory negligence. However, in this connection as the court has already instructed you, if the [136]*136plaintiff was instructed by the defendant to take a way. different than the one taken by the plaintiff, then, if, notwithstanding such instruction, and notwithstanding another way, safe and open, existed, the plaintiff took the way that he did, then, in that event, the rule would be that the plaintiff would be guilty of contributory negligence, for, by reason of taking the way he did, he sustained the injury. But, in determining whether or not an ordinarily prudent man would have taken the way that plaintiff took, you have a right to take into consideration whether or not such a way was usually and customarily used by employes, if it was so used in going to the place where plaintiff was going to adjust the belt. If there was another safe way, and plaintiff knew it, and notwithstanding such knowledge plaintiff went the way he did, and if the way pursued by plaintiff was dangerous, and plaintiff knew it, and by reason of going said dangerous way plaintiff was injured, then, in that event, defendant would not be liable. In the absence of any instruction upon the part of the defendant, concerning what way to take, the question is, Was the way taken by plaintiff one which an ordinarily prudent person would have taken under the same circumstances? If you find from the evidence in this case that the defendant provided the plaintiff with a safe passageway leading to and from the saw, which it is alleged he was operating, to a point where it was necessary for the plaintiff to go to adjust the belt mentioned in plaintiff’s complaint, and the plaintiff had been instructed to follow said route, and in violation of such instructions chose a different and more dangerous route in going to or coming from said point, and in consequence thereof sustained the injury complained of, he would, in that case, be guilty of such contributory negligence as would preclude a recovery in this case, and it would be your duty to find for the defendant.”

This instruction, however, is predicated upon the assumption that such way, if there was such a way, must have been open. In other words, to be available as a way, it must have been a way that could have been pursued by the plaintiff.

[137]*1377. The defendant requested the following instruction, which was refused:

“If you find from the evidence that the shafting with which the plaintiff came in contact and which caused the injury was so located as to preclude the anticipation of danger therefrom upon the part of the defendant, the failure of the defendant to safeguard the same cannot be regarded as negligence upon the part of the defendant.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
129 P. 492, 64 Or. 129, 1913 Ore. LEXIS 19, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/love-v-chambers-lumber-co-or-1913.