The Bricklayer’s Scaffold Fall
A workplace injury suit highlights the dangerous construction conditions in early Seattle as a laborer fights the estate of a deceased developer.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The $10,000 damage suit of W. H. Middleton against Emma Ranke, as executrix of the estate of the late Otto Ranke, was on trial before Judge Osborn yesterday. When the Ranke building, on the corner of Fifth and Pike streets, was being built, Middleton was employed as a bricklayer. He worked around the building until September 2, 1892, when he met with a serious accident. He was working on a light scaffold forty-two feet above the ground when, he alleges, the foreman ordered another workman to go out on the same scaffold with a load of brick. It fell, and with it fell the unfortunate bricklayer. His left arm was splintered by the fall, and he received other injuries. The doctors tried to save the arm, but in the end, it was amputated. Middleton put in a claim for damages with Ranke's executrix, and it was disallowed, leading to this suit. Middleton is now secretary of the Western Central Labor Union.
“He was working on a light scaffold forty-two feet above the ground when, as he says, the foreman, who he says was incompetent and careless, ordered another workman to go out on the same scaffold with a load of brick.”
Workplace safety remains a contentious issue in Seattle's current construction boom, where high-rise accidents still dominate local news. The legal battle between a laborer and a major developer’s estate echoes today’s ongoing struggles for worker protections and liability in a city rapidly verticalizing.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.