Talkington v. Washington Veneer Co.

Citations

• 61 Wash. 137
• 112 P. 261
• 1910 Wash. LEXIS 1297

Syllabus

<p>Master and Servant — Injuries to Servant — Factory Act — Guarding Shafting — Application—Assumption of Risks. Rem. & Bal. Code, § 6587, requiring the operators of factories and mills to provide suitable safeguards for all shafting “with which the employees . . . are liable to come in contact while in the performance of their duties” can have no application to an accident in which a boy was injured while voluntarily using a shaft as a horizontal bar for gymnastic exercises, and did not come in contact with it in the performance of his duties; and the defense of assumption of risks accordingly applies (Crow, J., dissenting).</p> <p>Same — Contributory Negligence- — -Youthful Employee- — Question for Jury. Where the evidence is in direct conflict as to the appreciation of danger by a boy fourteen years of age, it is a question for the jury to determine whether he was guilty of contributory negligence in playing on an idle shaft, which would start revolving when the mill started up.</p> <p>Same — Contributory Negligence- — Failure to Heed Warning- — • Instructions. Where a boy was ordered by the foreman to get down from a shaft upon which he was playing, for the reason that the mill was about to start up, and there was positive evidence that he had time to do so, but stood for a perceptible period of time with his arm on the shaft, it is reversible error to refuse to give an instruction that, if he could have obeyed the order with reasonable diligence and failed to do so, he could not recover.</p>