Peterson v. Union Iron Works

Citations

• 48 Wash. 505
• 93 P. 1077
• 1908 Wash. LEXIS 906

Syllabus

<p>Master and Servant — Negligence—Cause of Accident — Death —Evidence—Sufficiency. The evidence is insufficient to establish the cause of the accident whereby the operator of a ripsaw was killed, and a nonsuit is properly granted, where it appears that there was no witness to the accident, that the deceased had been struck in the abdomen by some blunt instrument, leaving a mark such as could have been made by a board which was found in close proximity to the deceased’s position in operating the machine, which board had indentations indicating that it might have been caught and thrown by the saw by reason of failure to guard the saw with a splitter, and where it was only by inference that it could be said that the saw was being operated by the deceased at the time of the accident.</p> <p>Same — Evidence—Admissibility—Remoteness. In an action for the death of an operator of a ripsaw, where there was no direct evidence of the cause of the accident and at most only an inference that a board might have been caught and thrown by reason of lack of a guard or splitter, evidence of a defect in the saw table is inadmissible as too remote.</p>