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160 Mass. 566

Connolly v. Eldredge

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided March 1, 1894

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1894-03-01

Tort, for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by having her band caught between the rollers of a steam ironing machine, known as a “ mangle.” Trial in the Superior Court, before Bishop, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, in • substance as follows.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““ The danger to fingers from two cylinders in contact with each other, and seen to be revolving inwardly, is obvious to any person of ordinary powers, and plainly was understood by the plaintiff. Crowley v. Pacific Mills, 148 Mass. 228 [ 19 N. E. 344 ]. * * * The plaintiff was putting a cloth upon the cylinder above the guard. She saw, or might have seen, all the elements of danger, including the distance between the guard and the cylinder on that side. To appreciate them required no warning or instruction beyond what is furnished by common experience.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Fryezynski v. W. W. Rice Leather Co.

Relies on Crowley v. Pacific Mills · Patnode v. Warren Cotton Mills

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1894-03-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently February 1936

1 federal appellate · 16 state decisions — followed in 10 states

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Holmes, J.

¶1The danger to fingers from two cylinders in contact with each other, and seen to be revolving inwardly, is obvious to any person of ordinary powers, and plainly was understood by the plaintiff. Crowley v. Pacific Mills, 148 Mass. 228. In Patnode v. Warren Cotton Mills, 157 Mass. 283, 289, it might have been found that the plaintiff could not see the revolving rolls by which he was hurt. In the present case, if there had been no guard across the shelf of the mangle, the plaintiff would have acted at her peril. But the guard did not convert the mangle into a trap. It manifestly was not intended to protect the hand except in the ordinary use of the mangle, when clothes were slid under the guard. The plaintiff was putting a cloth upon the cylinder, above the guard. She saw, or might have seen, all the elements of danger, including the *571distance between the guard and the cylinder on that side. To appreciate them required no warning or instruction beyond what is furnished by common experience.

¶2Exceptions overruled.

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