Shevlin-Hixon Co. v. Smith

165 F.2d 170, 1947 U.S. App. LEXIS 2042
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedDecember 29, 1947
DocketNo. 11567
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 165 F.2d 170 (Shevlin-Hixon Co. v. Smith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Shevlin-Hixon Co. v. Smith, 165 F.2d 170, 1947 U.S. App. LEXIS 2042 (9th Cir. 1947).

Opinion

GARRECHT, Circuit Judge.

This is the second time that this case has been brought before this court on appeal. In the first appeal, the present appellee sought review of a judgment ordering that the present appellant’s motion for a directed verdict be sustained. We reversed the judgment of the lower court, and remanded the case for further proceedings. Smith v. Shevlin-Hixon Co., 9 Cir., 157 F.2d 51. For convenience and brevity, we will hereinafter refer to this earlier opinion as “the first case”.

The appellee asked for damages in the sum of $7,400, for injuries to her right knee suffered when she jumped from a table top to the floor while she was employed in the appellant’s box factory. The jury awarded her $5,900.

The appellant moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The judgment below denied the appellant’s motion, and awarded the appellee damages in accordance with the verdict of the jury, together with $541.62 as costs. From that judgment the present appeal has been taken.

In pre-trial proceedings, the following matters were admitted as to the issues framed by the complaint and the answer thereto:

The action was brought under the Employers’ Liability Act of Oregon, § 102-1601, O.C.L.A.1940, which requires, among other things, that “all owners, contractors or subcontractors and other persons having charge of, or responsible for, any work involving a risk or danger to the employees or the public, shall use every device, care and precaution which it is practicable to use for the protection and safety of life and limb, limited only by the necessity for preserving the efficiency of the structure, machine or other apparatus or device, and without regard to the additional cost of suitable material or safety appliance and devices.”

The appellant is a Delaware corporation and the appellee is a citizen of Oregon. The appellant operates, among other things, a box factory where many power-driven machines are used, at Bend, Oregon, where it employed the appellee between October 26, 1942, and August 24, 1943. The box factory is an integral part of a large lumber manufacturing plant in which much power-driven machinery is used.

On May 15, 1943, and for some time pri- or thereto, the appellee had been directed and assigned to do ‘punking’ work — that is, grading, sorting and stacking, behind a hi-cut-off saw. Her place of employment was a space approximately 3 feet square bounded on three sides by tables, the tops of which were approximately 33 inches from the floor. The fourth side consisted of rolls of approximately the same height from the floor.

In the same room there were eight hi-cutoff saws, a number of ripsaws and resaws, all power-driven, and, in addition thereto, there were moving rolls. The appellee was required to work and did work within arm’s length of the rolls and the hi-cut-off saws, and was required to pass by and work near the other operating power-driven machinery daily during the course of her employment.

The hi-cut-off saw was located approximately 2 feet above the tables surrounding the appellee and opposite the rolls. Here the sawyer took lumber from a bin or stall behind him and sawed it into short lengths, which he slid down to the table where the appellee was working. The appellee then sorted the cut lumber and, after stacking it, placed it upon the rolls, which carried it away.

An overhead cat-walk with descending stairs allowed the sawyers to get to their machines. As soon as the sawyer finished all the lumber in one bin, he, together with [173]*173his 'punk1 or ‘grader’, moved to the next machine.

Four sawyers were working at the same time on the night of the accident. The night foreman was Guy Smith.

On May 15, 1943, the appellee, at Smith’s direction, was taken to a hospital, with an injured knee.

Among the .issues framed by the pretrial were the following:

The appellee contends that the rolls were live rolls. The appellant contends that they were operated solely by gravity.

The appellee asserts that the tables that she had to go over were 36 inches from the floor, while the appellant says that they were only 33 inches high.

The appellee maintains that she lost no work, prior to May 15, 1943, because of any complaint connected with her knee, and had not lost more than two days since she started working for the company. The appellant denies this.

The appellee contends that the only means of entrance into her place of employment was to come down the cat-walk, crawl over a rail to the table, and then jump from it to the floor, or crawl over the rolls. The appellant insists that she could have walked to her place of employment on the floor level, or entered either under or over the rolls, or could have descended safely without jumping.

The appellee asserts that a ladder, a stairway, or a redesigning of the operational set-up could have been used without impairing the efficiency of the structure, machine, or other apparatus or device, and without regard to the additional cost of suitable material or safety appliances and devices, which would have permitted a safe means of entering the appellee’s place of employment, and would not have required her to jump down 33 or 36 inches. The appellant denies this and maintains that there was a safe means of entry that she could have used. The appellant admits, however, that on or about April 17, 1944, the rolls were removed from the rear of the enclosure in which the appellee had been required to work, and that a moving belt was placed under the front table, which left open the rear of the enclosure.

The appellee alleges that on May 15, 1943, when she jumped from the table top to the floor to begin work, she suffered a fractured bone and semilunar cartilage and other damage thereto, the exact nature and extent of which is unknown to her, of her right knee, together with torn and wrenched ligaments of the knee. The appellant denies that she jumped, and contends that she was not injured at all on that date, that she had no fractured semi-lunar cartilage or wrenched knee, or other injury thereto that was sustained by her in its box factory, and that, if she did jump, it was by her own negligence.

The appellee avers that because she was employed in a box factory or sawmill, that because she was required to work and did work close enough to touch the moving rolls and dangerous hi-cut-off blades, and that by reason of being, during the course of ■ her daily employment, required to be near the various other power-driven ripsaws, and resaws, the work that she was required to perform was one involving risk and danger to the employees and to the public generally, and particularly to herself, within the meaning of the Oregon Employers’ Liability Act, supra. She further asserts that by reason of the means of ingress and egress to her place of employment, that because during her working hours she was subjected to the dangers thereof, and that because of the nature of her employment generally, her cause of action comes within the ambit of that act.

This contention, which is perhaps the crucial point in this second appeal, is denied by the appellant, which further denies that any risk or danger referred to or within the interpretation of that act caused or in any way contributed to any injury suffered by the appellee.

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Bluebook (online)
165 F.2d 170, 1947 U.S. App. LEXIS 2042, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shevlin-hixon-co-v-smith-ca9-1947.