Smith v. Shevlin-Hixon Co.

Asserting that her right knee was injured when she jumped from a table top to the floor in the course of her work in the ap-pellee’s box factory, the appellant brought suit for $7,400 in the court below. From a judgment ordering that the appellee’s motion for a directed verdict be sustained, the present appeal was taken.

In pre-trial proceedings the following facts were stipulated:

The appellee, a Delaware corporation, operates a box factory at Bend, Oregon, where it employed the appellant between October 26, 1942, and August 24, 1943. Many power-driven machines are used in the factory.

*53 On May 15, 1943, and for some time prior thereto, the appellant had been directed to do “punking” work — that is, grading, sorting, and stacking behind a “hi-cut-off” saw. Her place of employment was a space approximately three feet square, enclosed on three sides by tables, the tops of which were about thirty-three inches from the floor. The fourth side consisted of moving rolls, which the -appellant contends were power-driven and the appellee maintains were operated solely by gravity. The rolls were of about the same height from the floor as the tables.

The “hi-cut-off” saw was located…