The Price of a Fall at the Seattle Theater
A laborer files suit against a contractor after a workplace accident in an elevator shaft leaves him permanently injured.
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.
Adolph Anderson, a laborer, yesterday commenced suit in the superior court to recover from Contractor James Spurr $11,000 damages for injuries received while in the latter's employ October 11, 1893. At that time Spurr was building the new Seattle theater on Third and Cherry streets, and Anderson was in charge of the elevator used in raising brick to the upper stories. Anderson alleges that the elevator became unmanageable, and that the foreman ordered him to go into the shaft beneath it to start it if possible. To do this he states that he was compelled to step down onto a brace, which gave way beneath him and allowed him to fall to the pavement below, breaking his left arm and leg. He complains that the fall has permanently injured him, and that since he might reasonably have expected to earn wages for the next thirty years if the accident had not occurred, the contractor ought to pay him the amount of his expectations, together with the amount he spent in trying to regain his health.
“Since he might reasonably have expected to earn per year for the next thirty years if the accident had not occurred, the contractor ought to pay him the amount of his expectations.”
This suit highlights the brutal reality of construction work in late-19th century Seattle, where safety protocols were nonexistent and workers bore the brunt of industrial negligence. It echoes the long-standing legal battles over liability in construction, a sector that remains one of the most hazardous in the city today.
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