Brunger

Action for personal injuries. Judgment for plaintiff. Order denying a new trial. Appeal from judgment and order.

Plaintiff, an employee of the defendant, was engaged in operating a paper-cutting machine furnished by defendant as an appliance for operation in the performance of plaintiff’s duties. The machine worked automatically, the knife being operated by a friction clutch. It is intended that this knife, which with its head weighs about two hundred pounds, should come down once only when the clutch holding it is released. When at the top, in order to start the knife, a spring catch is released and a handle lifted. The knife then falls and returns to the top by its own mechanism, and when it reaches the top a trip throws out a clutch and also puts on a brake, which holds it there. The defendant had intrusted the machine and its care and repair into the hands of the foreman. This foreman directed plaintiff, on May 17, 1906, to operate such machine. It appears from the evidence that the machine had been for some time out of adjustment and repair, to the extent that upon occasions the clutch would not hold and the knife would descend a second time without the clutch being released…