Nalewaja v. Northwestern Improvement Co.

Citations

• 63 Wash. 391
• 115 P. 847
• 1911 Wash. LEXIS 1213

Syllabus

<p>Master and Servant — Coal Mines — Safe Place — Ventilation— Evidence — Sufficiency. The evidence sufficiently shows that the owner of a mine failed to perform the imperative and continuing duty to cause air to circulate in the working places in a coal mine, imposed by Rem. & Bal. Code, § 7381, where there was black damp in plaintiff’s working place, the foreman instructed him to continue working there and said the falling of the rock would bring ventilation, and the plaintiff testified he would have broken through the wall to good air in about an hour and a half.</p> <p>Same — Injury from Palling Rock — Proximate Cause — Evidence —Sufficiency. There was sufficient evidence that the presence of black damp in a coal mine was the proximate cause of an.injury from falling rock, where the plaintiff’s lights were put out by the black damp and he was struck by a rock falling from the face of coal, two to eight feet distant from the place where plaintiff was timbering, and he might have seen the rock and avoided the injury if he had had a light.</p> <p>Same — Contributory Negligence — Question eor Jury. Whether a coal miner was guilty of contributory negligence in timbering or failing to timber his working place is for the jury, where it appears that he was timbering when his lights went out and he was struck by a rock falling from the side, he would have finished the timbering within thirty minutes if he had not been injured, and according to one witness the timbering was two or four or six feet from the face of the coal, defendant’s witness claiming it should be kept within two and one-half or three feet.</p>