Brown

The defendant in error, a coal miner by occupation, brought this action in the court below against the plaintiff in error coal company to recover damages for injuries sustained *870 by him by the explosion of gas at the place in the mine where he was working, which was at breast No. 77 on the sixth level of the plaintiff in error’s extensive Black Diamond coal mine, in King county, state of Washington; the complaint alleging as grounds of the action the neglect of the defendant thereto to furnish the plaintiff a safe and secure place in which to work, and, further:

The answer of the company, in addition to the denials .of the averments of the complaint, set up the affirmative defenses of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff, negligence of a fellow servant of the plaintiff, and assumption of risk, by the latter.

It appeared in evidence that the plaintiff was a young man but little past majority, and had been working in coal mines for about two years, and in this particular mine about five days, which mine was and is a gaseous one. Being such, it was, of course, the duty of the company to provide for its. proper ventilation, one means of which was the erection of…