Williams v. Craig & Dawson Coal Co.

The defendant operated a coal mine by the room and pillar system. The plaintiff had been employed in it six or seven years, and had been a miner much longer. The particular entry extended several hundred feet from the bottom of the shaft, and Arch and Joseph Hays were driving it further to the east. The track had been laid to within about twenty feet of the face of the coal, the end of the entry as then driven. There was a cross-cut about thirty or thirty-five feet back where plaintiff had worked with the mine foreman a couple of hours the night previous, putting in timber. In the morning…