The Company Blamed the Dead Miner

In their answer filed yesterday to the suit for damages brought against them by J. Jones, whose husband, Miner Jones, met death in the Franklin mines last August, the Oregon Improvement Company and a number of its officers outlined the defense which will be made to the present suit as well as to those which may hereafter be brought growing out of the terrible mine horror on the sixth level of the mine in which thirty-five lives were lost. The defendants claim that Miner Jones' death was caused and occasioned solely by his want of care and skill and lack of judgment in not immediately leaving the mine when notified, and on discovering that the fire was raging on the sixth level. It was through no carelessness, negligence or lack of skill on their part, the defendants say, that Jones' death was occasioned. The defendants further set up that his death was occasioned by a risk incident to his employment as a miner and was assumed by him when he entered the company's employ. Jones' services in the mine at the time of the horror, also, it is alleged, contributed to his death. As is known, the thirty-five men caught in the mine were able to leave the mine, but instead of doing so they stopped to fight the fire which they had to pass on the way to the mouth of the mine. The fan had been reversed, the mine became suddenly filled with smoke, and the miners were all stricken while trying to reach the mouth of the mine.