Claim of Kronberger v. Harlem Bottle Co.

ment of the Commission, was procured by it to meet the Mihrn case. Here the employer’s business was keeping men upon the city dumps, picking bottles from the junk and refuse there, taking them to its warehouse, washing, steaming and sorting them according to kind, and keeping them until sold. It also bought new bottles and bottles from second-hand dealers and junk dealers, wherever offered, by the carload lots, wagon load or by barrels and otherwise. It occupied a building about thirty feet by eighty, in part of which was an office and the remainder was used for storing the bottles. The secretary of the company well defined its business as follows: “ Q. Do you do anything else besides buy bottles? A. Buy them and store them inside and sell them,— that’s all we do.” The Commission found that the business of the employer was that “ of junk dealer in respect to bottles, and storage.” Ordinarily, the buying of second-hand bottles is not in itself dealing in junk as that, word is generally understood, but the men whose business it is to go upon the public dumps of the city of New York, overhauling the junk and refuse there and picking out and removing bottles therefrom, are evidently exposed to the risks and dangers incident to the employment, embraced within group 42. But it is unnecessary to determine whether within this beneficial statute the employer might be held to be a dealer in junk with respect to bottles, as found by the Commission, as we conclude he was engaged in storage of some kind within the meaning of group 29. The group should have a liberal construction so as to bring within it, so far as reasonably may be, the employees who are exposed to the risks and dangers ordinarily incident to the business embraced within it. In Wilmott v. Paton (4 W. C. C. 65) it was said: “ I think that-, upon the admitted facts as stated to us, there was clearly a prima facie case that these premises were a ‘ warehouse.’ The premises were used for the business of breaking up old iron for sale, and very large quantities of old iron were kept stored in large covered sheds upon the premises.” And in Green v. Britten (6 W. C. C. 82), upon the same subject, the court says: “ Nor can it be limited so as to apply only to a building where the public can send their goods to be stored for them, as in the case of the large furniture repositories. The word is applicable to a building used by the owner for the storage of his own goods, though it has no connection of any sort with water transit. * * * While it may be difficult to define “ warehouse,” I am of opinion that, as used in the Act of 1897,^[2] it involves the idea of a place normally of considerable size, mainly used for the storage of goods in bulk or in large quantities, and in which consequently the dangers incident to the handling of goods in bulk or in large quantities might naturally arise.’ ” In Armour & Company v. Industrial Board of Illinois (275 111. 328; 114 N. E. Rep. 173 ) the company, in its building, stored its produce for sale to dealers in Danville and vicinity; fresh meats were kept usually no longer than a week, and smoked meats from one to three weeks. It was held to be within the act^[3] providing