Patterson v. Sears-Roebuck & Co.

HUTCHESON, Chief Judge.

The suit, brought in Alabama by the administrator of the estate of a deceased employee, sought damages, actual and punitive, for her death.

The claim was: that plaintiff’s intestate was in defendant’s employ as a clerk or office worker; that she was required to work in a building which was so locked and secured as to prevent egress therefrom; and that, as a result, she was, when a fire arose, entrapped therein and burned to death.

Further alleging: that decedent left surviving her only a husband, a father, and a brother, no one of whom was in any degree dependent on said…