Arundell

Judgment for ten thousand dollars followed the verdict of a jury as damages suffered by plaintiff for the loss of his right hand while in defendant’s employ. The appeal is from the judgment and from the order denying defendant’s motion for a new trial.

In 1910 plaintiff, then twenty-three years of age, worked for defendant for about six months, receiving $3.50 per day and board, including Sundays. He had had some previous experience in the oil fields, being employed principally as a “roustabout.” For some weeks previous to November 15, 1910, he had been employed by defendant as a “tool-dresser,” and was working in that capacity on that date. He commenced work at midnight, the accident occurring at about 4:30 o’clock in the morning. The only other person at work on the derrick at the time was one A. F. Mellen, designated as a “driller.”

Plaintiff’s testimony as to what he was doing and the cause of the accident was as follows: “I was jarring on a pipe, running the spear to the bottom of the pipe, and jarring it up trying to free the pipe to get it loose in the well—it was froze. The well was somewhere in the neighborhood of two thousand feet deep. A spear is a contrivance you put…